The Flash: Season 8 Episode 12 Review - GameRant

This week's episode of The Flash saw the crew doing what they do best. They fought a big bad a little bit and they spent some time in the lab trying to figure out just how to stop something that was a little too powerful than they could deal with. It's not a stretch to say that this particular show is always at its best when that happens to be the situation. The Flash is so powered up in this show that it can feel like it's quite hard for a villain to show up that could actually go toe-to-toe with him. The season usually has a couple of villains, or sometimes even just one villain that is superpowered himself to the point where he can't simply be dispatched in one episode.

The show did that briefly when it came to Despero, though in the end, he seemed more annoying than so overpowered that the group couldn't handle him. There were little fights here and there, but while Flash and the rest of his group would often claim that he was simply too strong to deal with, he always seemed like someone who sooner or later wasn't going to measure up.

Episode 11 of The Flash really introduced the first villain this season that has looked like he offers something no one else that Barry Allen and company have fought against this year. Death Storm, who is apparently some sort of alien being that believes he's an evil or reborn version of Fire Storm has shown that he's plenty powerful to handle whatever is thrown at him. Not only has he confounded the group when they were trying to figure out just what he was, but there also doesn't appear to be any real way to fight him at this point.

The Flash- Season 8 Episode 12 Review killer frost

There is also something sort of interesting behind the idea that Death Storm might actually be winning Caitlyn over to his cause. He's clearly not there yet, but the show did a pretty good job in showing that even just the one flight she took with him, even if it was against her will, she started to feel herself starting to change and shift. The Flash can have some episodes that are just far too sappy when it comes to lost loves and especially those people eventually making a comeback. However, the tone seemed to do it just enough sap that it was actually pretty on point.

Caitlyn wasn't pining away for the man she lost. There wasn't a ton of discussion about how he's not actually the person she misses so much. On the contrary, the show seemed to go out of its way to make it very clear that everyone knew this was not the firestorm they knew who they would all then work to try and help or even bring back to life. One does have to wonder if that might change at some point in The Flash because the writers absolutely seem to love to do the whole long-lost love, but for now, the show is handling things just the right way.

While the show dealing with Death Storm was mostly very good, there is a part of this series that the writers seem so incredibly bored with that they just aren't really even trying anymore. Iris West continues to be a pariah these days and for the last few episodes has been hanging out in an entirely different town than the rest of Team Flash. However, perhaps the absolute weirdest part of her storyline in this episode is that they resolved the biggest trouble she was in with nary an explanation as to how.

That's now to say that the explanation as to how she was able to get back from wherever she was sent in the last episode by the phasing youngster. The show literally did not explain in any real way how she got back. All of a sudden she was just back and when she was asked how it happened, it was waved away by her and Sue Dearborn making it clear that there were more important things to worry about. Perhaps even the writers of The Flash know that putting Iris in a situation where she has to be saved by Barry and the team has happened so often that the audience simply wouldn't be interested in seeing it happen again.

The Flash- Season 8 Episode 12 Review Death Storm

It's just hard to tell what exactly the writers are doing with Iris this season. She apparently has some kind of time sickness, though that's never really been explained to any deep degree as to what exactly it is. Apparently, it means that sometimes if she touches people, she sends them skittering away into some part of the time stream. One of the subplots of The Flash is indeed looking for a way to save her and cure her, but it just doesn't seem all that important in the grand scheme of things.

At this point, The Flash just seems content to have Iris and Sue basically sit in the same room every episode and talk about the time sickness that doesn't really seem to matter to anyone. That includes her husband by the way. Having been told about the time sickness, he mostly popped up for about five minutes and then headed back to do his own thing. On the one hand, that particular story isn't all the interesting. On the other, the very obvious way the writers are spending almost no time on it or attention to it, drags down the entire episode when it takes that hard left in the plot for a bit.

It appears as though The Flash is going to continue to spend at least some time per week looking in on Iris if for no other reason than to remind everybody that she's still a part of The Flash. But until someone finally decides that she can just fade entirely into the background and never really be mentioned, the CW show is going to have fits and starts.

MORE: The Flash: How Is Barry Allen Able To Travel Back In Time?