The Flash Episode Guide: Season 8, Episode 15 - Into the Still Force

 For a summary of the episode guide layout & categories, click here.

Plot

When Iris disappears, Barry and Deon must travel into the Still Force to find her. Meanwhile, Chester makes a horrifying discovery when the CCPD call him in to look at some strange technology, as Caitlin forms an unlikely alliance with Chillblaine to bring Frost back to life.


Influences

The Flash comics of Joshua Williamson and Frankenstein (Chillblaine compares Caitlin to Dr. Frankenstein in her efforts to create life.)


Goofs

Sue Dearbon disappears from the storyline without explanation at this point. (Come to that, we didn't see her at Frost's funeral...)

Chillblaine's sudden decision to help Caitlin after refusing to do anything seems to be based around the need to stretch out her storyline and add some drama to it and nothing else.

Deon's heel-turn similarly comes out of nowhere.

The CGI saber-tooth tiger that randomly appears outside of Joe's house in the Still Force is completely random and not that convincing to boot.

The revelation that Bart and Nora are okay seriously undercuts all the tension regarding Iris' disappearance.


Performances

Jessica Parker Kennedy is as engaging as ever as Nora and single-handedly steals the episode.


Artistry

The direction used to distinguish the Still Force from reality is rather effective.


Flash Facts

While Barry is in the Still Force and having visions of his past, present and future, he joyfully says the name Max. This is likely a reference to Max Mercury - a time-traveling speedster from the comics who was a mentor to Barry Allen and, later, the guardian of Bart "Impulse" Allen. 

Barry also makes reference to seeing XS's wife in the future. This confirms that the new XS is a lesbian. The original XS from The Flash season 5 was also a lesbian according to showrunner Eric Wallace, but it was never referred to beyond the suggestion that Nora had a crush on the best friend who was killed by Godspeed and her flirting with Spin in 504.

Technobabble

By using one of Mirror Monarch's R-CEM chips to replicate Frost's cryogene, Caitlin thinks she can create a new body for Frost and recreate her through the same process that gave her a separate body.

Caitlin says she has identified Frost's latent empathic genes within her own DNA and believes she can extract her active imprints from the DNA of Frost's body.

Caitlin says the keratin in the sample of Frost's hair she took is decaying too quickly, so she needs a stronger DNA sample.

Barry uses an isotopic sensor to find the particle Deon planted in Iris.

The strange device Chester is asked to analyze emits trace radioactive particles and contains quantum coiling.

Chester confirms that the strange device from the halfway house is based on his quantum coil transformer, after he discovers that the interior was hardwired with a unique energy converter he designed.


Dialogue Triumphs

Barry: I'm proud of you.
Nora: So you're not mad I didn't join CCPD like you and Grandpa Joe?
Barry: No, of course not. I'm just... I'm glad you found a path that's right for you.
Nora: Phew. So, um, the thing is, is that I'm having a really hard time finding my voice as a reporter. But Mom is teaching me to have faith in myself and listen to my instincts. And if she were here right now, she'd tell you to do the same. And that everyone loses faith in themselves sometimes, even heroes. But learning how to keep believing in yourself when the whole world is telling you the opposite, that's what makes a hero.
Barry: You really are your mom's daughter.
Nora: (beaming) Well, I'm yours too.


Continuity

Barry wakes up to find Iris isn't there for breakfast. He checks his phone and finds a text message informing him she planned to pull an all-nighter at work.

Barry goes to the Central City Citizen with breakfast to find Iris isn't there either. She left her phone behind, which has 8 text messages she didn't respond to and 5 missed calls. Also, her latest article, about Fast Track Labs, is barely started and still pulled up on the computer..

Barry can't find Iris after running around Central City.

Cecile is at STAR Labs when Barry arrives, intending to use the satellites to search the globe for Iris. She claims to be hanging out there to avoid a new metahuman client. for some reason.

Cecile is unable to sense Iris' presence with her empathy powers and is confirmed to be powerful enough now to scan a 5-state radius around Central City.

It is suggested that Tinya Wazoo's powers might have had a hand in causing Iris to vanish, leading Barry to travel to Central City to search for her.

Caitlin tries to get Chillblaine to help her make a new body for Frost.

Chillblaine asks how they can restore Frost's soul.

Chillblaine objects to Caitlin's plan, even before she talks about an exhumation, which she can order as a medical doctor and Frost's next of kin. 

Chillblaine makes reference to Caitlin trying to resurrect Ronnie Raymond in 811 and that being a total disaster. He compares her to Dr. Frankenstein and says he wants no part of her plan.

Tinya Wazoo tells Barry she doesn't care about Iris and won't help him, because she ruined her life.

As Tinya leaves Barry, time stops around him and Deon Owens shows up.

Deon says that Iris is in the Still Force, but that the time sickness is making it hard for him to stay focused, so he needs Barry to come with him to find her.

Chester plans to repair the isotopic sensor so Barry can use it to find Iris in the Still Force. He says it will take him less than an hour.

Joe asks Barry how they can be sure Deon can be trusted, being skeptical of his statement that he needs Barry's help.

Barry says he tried to speak to the other Force avatars, but can't find them. Deon says he thinks the time sickness may have spread to them as well. 

Captain Kramer calls Chester to ask for his help in analyzing a strange high-tech device they found at a crime scene. Chester agrees to help having just finished getting the isotopic censor fixed.

Barry and Deon return to the same point where Deon first explained the time-sickness to Barry in 716. This is later identified as Central City Memorial Park, though Deon refers to it as his front porch since he can see everything from there.

Barry sees first-hand what Deon said about the Still Force becoming more dangerous and unstable, with night suddenly shifting to day in the blink of an eye and people aging and de-aging at random.

Barry picks up a newspaper which originally described the explosion of the STAR Labs Particle Accelerator in 2013. It changes to a May 4. 2024 edition, which discusses the destruction of Central City at the hands of Zoom and Godspeed teamed-up.

As Barry and Deon track the particle into the Central City Citizen offices, they see a hologram of Taylor and Allegra arguing. Allegra keeps saying "Taylor, don't. This is my life, my decision. It's not what you think." as Taylor repeats " They need to know... they... they need to know what you've been hiding." This seems to suggest that Taylor, who was wanting to investigate Team Flash and had threatened to destroy Allegra's career, will figure out that Allegra is a metahuman and part of Team Flash at some point in the future and threaten to expose her.

Barry and Deon discover Renee Wazoo, who disappeared into the Still Force after she touched Iris in 810.

Barry wants to stop the search for Iris to try and find Renee after she disappears, but Deon says they have to stay focused on Iris.

Captain Kramer has decorated her office with Indigenous artwork, which reminds her of the reservation she grew up on.

The device the CCFD found came from a halfway house in downtown Central City, where there was an explosion. The device in question was attached to the water heater of the house. Thankfully, nobody was harmed thanks to a tip being called in regarding the explosion before it happened. All 37 occupants of the house were evacuated before an energy wave took out the building.

Chester seems to recognize something about the device after opening it up, but lies when Captain Kramer notices him looking stunned.

As Barry and Deon move further into the CCC offices, they walk past screens with a headline about Trickster invading Tibet at some point where Vanya is now the Editor-In-Chief of the Central City Citizen instead of Iris. This event was referred to in 806 as XS and Impulse read the records at the Flash Museum in 2049.

Deon turns on Barry and traps him in a part of the Still Force resembling Joe West's home.

It is revealed that the new XS is a reporter in 2049, like her mother, and she's writing a story about her latest solo adventure, saving a crowd at Shark Stadium while Impulse was busy partying.

XS uses her father's Gideon AI as a personal assistant.

XS becomes trapped in the Still Force as well after following Deon's voice.

Barry and XS find Iris' brush which disappeared from Joe's home during the final scene of 806.

Chester confirms that the device from the exploding half-way house is based on a design he put on-line as part of his streaming science show.

Chester references Allegra's warning in 811 that bad people might use his tech to do harm. 

Allegra points out that someone called in a warning to evacuate the halfway house, suggesting that what happened was an accident rather than a planned terrorist attack.

XS tells Barry that she's a writer rather than a CSI, like the original Nora from Season 5.

Barry tells XS that he's proud of her regardless of what her job is.

Nora's speech about the connections between their family causes him to remember that he has a small connection to the Still Force, which he should be able to use to escape.

Barry and Nora appear to Joe as green-tinted ghosts at his home in 2022 as Barry connects to the Still Force.

Barry says he has visions of Cisco and Frost from the past, and also sees future visions of Bart's children and XS's wife. He also sees someone he seemingly recognizes and forgets named Max.

Barry and Nora are able to escape the Still Force and emerge in Central City in 2022, because Barry figured out he must somehow escape if Nora was still alive. This also causes him to belief that Iris must be okay and will turn up eventually, given that his children are okay in the future.

Barry loses his connection to the Still Force and still has no idea why Deon turned on him.

Chester identifies the bomber as one of his followers, Wookielover77, who worked as a volunteer at the halfway house and was trying to fit the water heater with a clean power source. Unfortunately, he wasn't quite good enough to install the device safely.

Someone hacks Chester's computer and starts downloading his designs remotely after he leaves his lab with Allegra.

Chillblaine changes his mind and agrees to help Caitlin bring Frost back to life.


Location

Coast City - 2022.
The Still Force.
Central City - 2049.


Untelevised Adventures

Wally West taught Barry how to meditate to access the various forces besides the Still Force at some point in the past.

Wally also teaches Bart how to create constructs made of lightning in the future.


The Bottom Line

Somehow manages to feel packed with filler while being completely underwritten.

The Flash Episode Guide: Season 8, Episode 14 - Funeral for a Friend

 For a summary of the episode guide layout & categories, click here.

Plot

Team Flash struggles to apprehend a new power-armored bank robber, while figuring out how to best mourn the fallen Frost.

Goofs

In the original synopsis of this episode released with the previews, Blockbuster was described as a metahuman. The Arrowverse version of Blockbuster revealed in this episode gets his powers from a stolen suit of power armor.

Caitlin is clearly being played by a body double in one scene of the montage of Caitlin gathering all of Frost's belongings.(This was likely due to Danielle Panabaker's pregnancy at the time of filming.)


Artistry

The opening montage of everyone on Team Flash remembering Frost is rather touching.


Flash Facts

The title of the episode comes from an Elton John song.

This episode introduces the Arrowverse version of Mark Desmond, aka Blockbuster. First appearing in Detective Comics #345 (November 1965), Desmond was a chemist who developed a formula that increased his strength while decreasing his intellect and making him almost mindlessly aggressive. This made him easy prey for his criminal brother, Roland, who exploited him for his own benefit. The Rogues, Secret Society of Supervillains and Suicide Squad did the same thing until Desmond's death. This version of Blockbuster is not used often in the modern comics, due to his being a rather obvious rip-off of the Incredible Hulk, right down to his torn purple pants.

A different version of Blockbuster was mentioned in A713 as being a crime boss in Bludhaven who Dinah Drake brought down while working undercover. This was likely a reference to the second Blockbuster in the comics, Roland Desmond, who developed the same condition as his brother but made a deal with the Demon Neron to have his intelligence enhanced along with his body. He became the kingpin of Bludhaven's underworld and the archenemy of Nightwing. There is no indication this Blockbuster exists post-Crisis, however.

The Arrowverse version of Mark Desmond steals an exo-suit from Ivo Labs that gives him enhanced strength while making him more mentally unstable. In this way he has the same powers and weakness as his comic book counterpart, without being an obvious Hulk rip-off.

Allegra calls Chester "Condiment King" at one point. The comical villain was confirmed to exist in the Arrowverse in B309, when it was revealed his condiment gun was one of the trophies in Batman's vault of villain weapons.

Technobabble

The Ivo Labs exo-suit worn by Blockbuster amplifies the wearer's biochemistry, so everything from movements to emotions makes them stronger but also makes them more unstable.

The exo-suit also has cloaking technology that prevents it from being tracked.

Caitlin "borrows" a genome sequencer for her new lab.


Dialogue Triumphs

(A hungover Chillblaine emerges from the Med Lab, surprising Barry.)
Barry: How long were you in there?
Chillblaine: (panting) I was hoping you could tell me. Hey, do you mind telling the contractors to knock off all the hammering or whatever that is?
Barry: Uh, that's... not construction.
Chillblaine: Oh, great. Guess I overdid it with the bourbon... And the tequila... and the vodka. 

Chillblaine: What's impossible for The Flash?

Barry: Look, Caitlin, um... about yesterday morning in the lounge.
Caitlin: It's fine. I know you were just trying to help.
Barry: You know, trying and knowing the right words to say aren't the same thing. And I'm sorry. I said everything wrong.
Caitlin: We've both been through a lot over the last couple of days, so I think it's okay to let ourselves off the hook. But you don't have to worry about me. I'm good, honest.

(Barry tries to talk Caitlin into attending the funeral one more time.)
Caitlin: Unbelievable. I mean, do you hear yourself right now? This isn't even about me. This is about you and your need to be the hero. I am not one of your missions, okay? And not everything can just be fixed with speed healing. But I need to grieve Frost in my own way. So if you don't mind, will you please leave?
Barry: Look, Caitlin, I will leave you alone if that's what you really want, but before I go, just ask yourself one thing. What would Frost want? For you? You knew her better than anybody. Would she want you to pull away? Would she want us to let you?

Caitlin: I'll keep you alive, Frost. I promise.


Dialogue Disasters

Blockbuster: Pathetic. Worst heroes ever. (He's not wrong, but when your villain sounds like the Comic Book Guy...)

Barry: I think she's preparing for the funeral tomorrow. Maybe we should do the same thing. (Wait... so none of Team Flash were going to Frost's funeral until Barry suggested it?)


Continuity

The opening montage shows Chester, Allegra, Iris and Barry remembering Frost. The reasons why range from Chester seeing a sign promoting the Killer Frost drink at CC Jitters to Barry still staring at the bed where Frost died in 813.

Team Flash is summoned to the site of a bank robber who is wearing some kind of high-tech exo-suit.

Chester determines the exo-suit was stolen from Ivo Labs.

As Chester is formulating a battle plan while Barry tries to save the people in a collapsing building, he forgets that Frost isn't there. This causes Allegra to execute half of a plan with no back-up, as Cecile becomes overwhelmed by Blockbuster's emotions.

Barry suggests the team all need to grieve Frost in order to get their heads back in the game before fighting Blockbuster a second time.

Caitlin is surprised to find Team Flash is having a meeting. Barry explains they thought she was busy preparing for Frost's funeral.

Caitlin revels that her mother is handling all of the arrangements and she isn't going to the funeral.

Joe suggests that everyone find a way to honor Frost's memory, revealing that he's started taking watercolor classes because of her pushing him to try art the same way she did.

Iris and Cecile have lunch together and discuss Joe's idea.

Cecile says she's going to devote 25% of her case load to pro bono work for wrongly imprisoned metahumans.

Iris says she was going to write a special obituary for Frost, but is afraid she may accidentally expose herself as a member of Team Flash by writing about her in detail.

Iris assigns Aariz, a writer for CCC Media who used to write obituaries for "Stars and Stripes" to write Frost's obituary, since he had experience writing about soldiers who had no family or died while on classified missions where he didn't have all the details of their lives.

Iris shows the obituary to Frost and Caitlin's mom. She thinks it sounds cold and impersonal.

Iris admits the real problem is she never really got to know Frost and isn't sure what to say about her.

Carla says that Frost's legacy is not what people thought of her but the lives she saved.

Iris hosts a special episode of her Citizentopia podcast devoted to interviewing people Frost helped. This includes a young couple named Kamiko and Jamal (who got married after Frost saved them during Bloodwork's attack on Central City) and a graffiti artist who Frost let off with a warning after he tagged his territory. He says he's going to open his first gallery exhibit next week. 

Iris also interviews the former DA of Central City, who tried to prosecute Frost in 708. Frost's example during her trial inspired her to quit the state prosecutor's office and become a defense attorney specializing in metahuman law in Star City.

CC Jitters, as a result of Iris' broadcast, changes the name of the Killer Frost drink to Frost.

Allegra disagrees with Joe's idea of doing something special to honor Frost, but Chester thinks it is a good idea.

Chester considers building a special case with cryo coolers to hold Frost's costume, similar to the eternal flame Barry and Supergirl made for Green Arrow's memorial. Allegra thinks that's a stupid idea that would just look like a giant snow globe.

Allegra and Chester keep arguing, with Chester accusing Allegra of never offering ideas of her own while shooting down all of his suggestions.

Allegra and Chester argue about whether or not humus is a condiment or a dip or a side dish and should be put on a sandwich.

Barry interrupts the argument to ask where the team's Arctic parkas are stored.

Barry is carrying an oar and wearing a life vest. This is a reference to his promise to take a whitewater rafting trip with Frost in 619 and foreshadows later in the episode when it is revealed he is trying to complete everything on Frost's bucket list.

Chester and Allegra travel to O'Shaughnessy's after the CCC tip-line picks up multiple reports of something odd happening. This turns out to be a drunken Chillblaine freezing the bar and singing the same sad songs over and over on the karaoke machine.

Allegra uses her powers to thaw out the bar safely.

Chillblaine says Allegra and Chester aren't really fighting - just helping each other see the world in a different way.

Allegra and Chester set Chillblaine up in the medical wing of STAR Labs after he passes out.

They ultimately agree to hang up the jacket from Frost's first superhero costume in the Hall of the Fallen in STAR Labs.

Frost's bucket list includes building a snowman on top of Mt. Everest, mastering ice sculpting, swing dancing with Judd Nelson, attending a samurai school in Kyoto, entered a hot dog eating contest and having her art hung in the Louvre. Barry does all of this in Frost's memory.

Chillblaine tells Barry that Frost was all about experiencing things rather than doing them. He tells Barry that they signed up for a couples tag-team wrestling tournament but they gave their championship belts to some kids at the ramen joint where they celebrated after.

Barry says he knows how to honor Frost's memory, but says it seems impossible. Chillblaine says nothing should be impossible for The Flash.

Caitlin is shown gathering up Frost's belongings in their apartment.

Barry visits Caitlin before the funeral to try and talk her into attending after apologizing for not listening to her reasons for not doing it.

Barry notices that Caitlin has a large bottle of over the counter sleeping pills.

Barry agrees to leave Caitlin alone, but asks her to think about what Frost would want.

Caitlin recalls her promise to Frost in 811 about not closing herself off from the team ever again.

Caitlin ultimately attends the funeral wearing one of Frost's blue dresses. She delivers tender eulogy, talking about Frost's courage, swimming with the sharks and then picking a fight with one and going to poetry slam nights with a poem she'd written on a napkin five minutes earlier.

Joe organizes a wake of sorts for Frost in his home and talks about how Frost took all his cleaning supplies for a collage, which is why he wound up using bleach to clean his curtains.

According to Chester, Wild Dog is using one of Joe's old mop handles as a bo staff.

The wake ends after the team gets an alert of Blockbuster being on the loose.

Joe asks Caitlin to stay with him and tell him more Frost stories.

Caitlin calls Chillblaine and asks her to meet with him at her apartment.

Chillblaine recognizes the device Caitlin is carrying as a genome sequencer.

Caitlin has turned her apartment into a lab. She asks for Chillblaine's help in resurrecting Frost.

Taylor tells Iris that Allegra isn't doing a good job as editor and asks for permission to investigate the heroes who help Flash out. Iris dismisses the story idea.

Iris vanishes from her office shortly after Taylor leaves.

Location

Mount Everest
Paris, France


Untelevised Adventures

Barry apparently swing danced with Judd Nelson, according to Frost's bucket list.

Team Flash defeats Blockbuster off-camera.


The Fridge Factor

Caitlin is made to look unreasonably cold and awful, driving her friends away to grieve alone before finally being guilted into attending Frost's funeral... only to go over the edge into full blown villainy. 


The Bottom Line

Despite some clunky dialogue, most of this episode is surprisingly heart-felt and sincere. Shame the last few minutes and Caitlin's sudden and incredibly out-of-character decision to become a mad scientist completely ruin it.

The Flash Episode Guide: Season 8, Episode 13 - Death Falls

 For a summary of the episode guide layout & categories, click here.

Plot

Deathstorm attacks each member of Team Flash individually, confronting them as their dead loved ones to feed on their grief and claim Caitlin as his bride.


Influences

Green Lantern: Blackest Night


Goofs

For all their talk earlier in the season about not killing, Team Flash is surprisingly eager to "snuff out" Deathstorm.

Caitlin tries to treat Frost's cardiac arrest with a defibrillator, despite her problem being a slowed heart rate. (Defibrillators are used for restoring a natural rhythm when 


Performances

Jon Cor and Danielle Panabaker have great chemistry as Frost and Chillblaine.


Flash Facts

At one point the fake Eddie Thawne mentions an uncle Robern. In the comics, Robern Thawne was the brother of Eobard Thawne, the Reverse-Flash.

Deathstorm makes reference to being born before Maltus. In the DC Universe, Maltus was the home of the first sentient life and eventually gave rise to the Guardians of the Universe.

The lightning at the end of the episode is tinged blue, in Frost's honor.

Technobabble

Deathstorm is made up of pure thermodynamic energy, so Team Flash use the Mental Augmentation Chamber to harness particles from its home dimension and then beam them into Frost's consciousness. The reaction should transform her into a being like Deathstorm. who can create fire, defy gravity, and consume Deathstorm's fuel source. 

Chester makes reference to the cryo-circuits of the MAC.

Barry puts Gideon to work on tracking extra-dimensional energies and cold fusion anomalies in Central City.

The walls and door of Chester's lab are made of titanium. 

Human beings go hyperthermic at 200 degrees Fahrenheit.

Chester notes that blood flow starts to decrease in a human body at 105 degrees Fahrenheit. Organs fail and brain function slows at 107.  At 109, the body will die to end its suffering.

The MAC makes use of augmentation receptors. 

Caitlin tries to save Frost by injecting her with cold fusion.


Dialogue Triumphs

Deathstorm: I was born a long time ago-- before Maltus, before the stars, during that lonely, blackest of nights. I was there when the first gas cloud sank and collapsed. I was there when the first beings drew their final, hissing breaths. I am decline. I am entropy. I am the master of death and all of its inhabitants.

Eddie: I thought my sacrifice would mean something. That I could erase the Reverse Flash from existence. That, finally, I could be a hero. But then Eobard Thawne came back, again, and again, and again, and again. What I did didn't matter at all. I died for nothing, and now you've made the same mistake. You sacrificed yourself for nothing.
Iris: I saved Barry, and I helped stop Armageddon.
Eddie: And then, what happened? The timeline got reset, but you're still suffering the consequences. Can't you see? Your death is gonna be just as pointless as mine.

Frost: Boy, was I stupid for ever thinking that was possible, because it doesn't matter. Doesn't matter how many life coaches I get, or if I get my own body, or do a bunch of art, or get my own boyfriend, because I'll always just be a copy of the original. An echo. 'Cause I've never been really alive. And now, that's gonna get Caity killed.
Chillblaine: Frost... If you are not really alive, where does that leave me? You're the only person I've ever cared about more than myself, or at least equal to myself.
Frost: I guess we're both screwed up then.
Chillblaine: Yeah, that's definitely true. Look, the way I see it, you and I have been through a lot, right? And through all of those ups and downs, I, for one, have seen you have loads of emotions-- all kinds-- especially when it comes to Caitlin. You love your sister like crazy. And wherever that love came from-- you know, whether you were born with it, or your dad gave it to you, or you put it together yourself over time, built it with pain and heartache-- that love is as real as it gets. Believe me.

Continuity

The episode begins later the same evening as 812.

Central City is still under a city-wide curfew.

Eddie Thawne, apparently live and well, suddenly shows up in Iris and Barry's apartment.

Chester confirms that he spent six weeks living in the Mental Augmentation Chamber during Season 6.

Cecile says that Caitlin's biometrics are stable, but she can feel her grief intensifying. 

Caitlin says she keeps having visions of her father's death from 519.

Frost calls Chillblaine in to help.

The power in STAR Labs goes out, as Chester is finishing the upgrades on the MAC.

Barry has Gideon working on identifying the cause of Iris' time sickness.

Allegra is confronted by an illusion of Ultraviolet.

Chester is confronted by an illusion of his father.

Barry is confronted by an illusion of his mother, Nora Allen.

Frost is confronted by an illusion of Ronnie Raymond.

The fake Ronnie tells Frost that he isn't appearing to her as anyone she knows because her grief isn't real. He claims that all her feelings are just echoes of Caitlin's and that she isn't really a person.

Allegra and Chester seal themselves in Chester's lab to escape from Ultraviolet. Unfortunately, she fries the temperature controls and the heat starts building up.

The fake Nora tells Barry that there's no cure for Iris and that he is doomed to lose her forever.

The fake Eddie offers to make Iris some of his Uncle Robern's famous chicken noodle soup.

The fake Eddie is able to burn Iris and Sue when they try to go for the exit and their phone respectively.

Cecile tells Frost that Caitlin's vitals are spiking and her temperature is going up. She can also feel the team's grief and says it is being channeled into Caitlin.

Chillblaine broke into Fast Track Labs to get Frost the cryo-circut needed to compete the modified MAC.

The thermostat in Chester's lab burns out at 137 degrees Fahrenheit. 

The fake Nora taunts Barry with the knowledge that if Iris dies, Bart and Nora will never exist either. She also says that his real legacy is heartbreak, rather than heroism.

The fake Eddie torments Iris with how pointless his death was since it didn't really stop the Reverse-Flash.

Sue was able to use her phone to summon Joe while Deathstorm was focused on Iris.

Deathstorm is able to incapacitate Sue with images of her grandmother and Joe of his former partner, Chyre.

The MAC fails to transform Frost. At first, Frost thinks this is because she doesn't have a true consciousness to manipulate, but Chilblaine figures out the chemical reaction is missing one key ingredient to fuel the transformation - grief. Once Frost allows herself to grieve, she transforms.

Frost's earliest memory is of Caitlin being hit by a car as a child.

Frost calls her new form Hellfrost. She has black hair instead of white.

Chillblaine learns Barry's secret identity.

Frost uses HR's image inducer to make herself look like Caitlin to lure Deathstorm in.

Frost is able to kill Deathstorm, but her vitals crash just after she transforms back to her normal self.

Frost goes into cardiac arrest.

Caitlin tries to save her, despite having just gotten out of a coma herself.

The final scene has Caitlin and Barry entering the lounge in silence, with everyone's reactions suggesting that Frost died.

The Fridge Factor

Frost is killed purely to give the team angst and make Caitlin look incompetent for failing to save her.


The Bottom Line

Some of the best moments of The Flash Season 8 have centered around Frost and her development, so naturally the showrunners have to put a stop that by killing her off, in an episode that seems to be both full of padding and yet underdeveloped in equal measure.

The Flash Episode Guide: Season 8, Episode 12 - Death Rises

 For a summary of the episode guide layout & categories, click here.

Plot

With Deathstorm on the rampage in Central City, Joe comes out of retirement to help coordinate the police response, as Team Flash uses Cecile's empathy powers to try and track the cold-fusion killer.

Influences

Green Lantern: Blackest Night


Goofs

Iris' sudden reappearance in Central City is perhaps the laziest bit of plot convenience in the show's history, as whatever Phantom Girl did to her is forgotten and never explained.

Deathstorm's motivations suddenly shift from killing the grieving to claiming Caitlin as his bride.

It's pointed out that Deathstorm haunts Allegra for no apparent reason. (If this were like Blackest Night, her light based powers might hold the key to beating him. Unfortunately, this plot point is dropped immediately.)

The "ride the lightning" sequence makes the Speed Force lightsabers from the Season 7 finale look plausible by comparison.


Performances

Danielle Panabaker does a great job playing off herself as Frost and Caitlin.


Artistry

As ridiculous as it is, the effects for the "Ride the Lightning" sequence are well-executed.


Flash Facts

The opening monologue by Deathstorm mimics some of Nekron's musings on life being an aberration and wanting to restore the peace of the early universe by killing everyone from Blackest Night. 

The Metallica song "Ride The Lightning" is used in the sequence in which Barry chases after Deathstorm by "riding lightning."

Technobabble

According to Iris, all time existence at once in the Still Force, allowing a person to see their past, present and future. However, for some reason, she was unable to see her future.

For some unexplained reason, Deathstorm's transformation changed the nature of his powers enough that Chester can no longer track him by the energy signature of his black flames.

Team Flash track Deathstorm by using a wireless neurogenic array synced with the Med Lab's synaptic monitoring relay to connect Cecile to STAR Labs' satellites.

Deon tries using a modified version of the metahuman tracking app to track Iris' movements in time and space.

Chester describes Allegra's powers as a light-based detonation on the electromagnetic spectrum which registers as a category-three spectral discharge.

Barry's gold boots can redirect most energy sources. This include currents equal to the kinetic output created when he run. According to Chester, the force of those two equal energies cancel each other out. but would create a sensation like running into a brick wall. Barry uses this to create lightning platforms he can use to chase after Deathstorm.

After being abducted by Deathstorm, Caitlin's vitals are elevated, her blood pressure is lower, and so is her body temperature. The strangest thing, however, is that her cells are in a constant state of regenesis, as if she's stopped aging normally.

Chester says they can use the Mental Augmentation Chamber (MAC) which saved his life and use it to emit cosmic radiation instead of absorbing trans-dimensional particles (i.e. the material that makes up black holes) in order to turn someone into an anti-Deathstorm.

Dialogue Triumphs

(Barry laments that he can't really plan against Deathstorm.)
Joe: A long time ago, I met someone who was as unprepared as it gets. Young, inexperienced, thrust into this whole new world that was sink or swim. You know what happened that he didn't see coming next? DeVoe. Zoom. Cicada. Bloodwork. But you're still standing, ain't you?

Frost: Okay, that's it. I am done waiting around for the Bachelor from Hell to come give Caity a rose. We need to find this sicko and end him, before he does anything worse to my sister.


Dialogue Disasters

Barry: Time to ride the lightning. 


Continuity

The episode picks up where 811 ended, with Deathstorm seemingly trying to burn Caitlin to death.

The Flash chases Deathstorm off, who flees even though Barry's lightning doesn't seem to effect it.

Caitlin does not have any burns when Barry examines her, despite being engulfed in Black Fire.

Caitlin explains to the rest of the team that Deathstorm is not Ronnie but was created by his death.

The cold fusion sphere is confirmed to be destroyed.

Cecile comes to STAR Labs offering to help, having heard about the attack on Caitlin.

Cecile senses that Barry is truly hurting - more than concern for a friend would cause.

Barry tells Cecile about Iris' disappearance and explains he hadn't told the rest of the team yet because he didn't want to distract them from the Deathstorm problem.

Sue texts Barry and tells him Iris is back.

Barry guesses that Iris' time sickness must have pulled her into the Still Force before Tinya could do whatever she was trying to do to Iris.

Iris tells Barry about her apparently accidentally killing Rene Wazoo in 810.

Deathstorm kills an old man who was apparently visiting a loved one's grave.

Captain Kramer uses the pager Barry gave her to summon The Flash for the first time since she received it in 807.

Sue stays with Iris while Barry is away.

The police field multiple reports regarding Deathstorm going on a rampage, kidnapping one man's wife and one body being burned but nothing else around the body.

Kramer says that there have been 10 Deathstorm victims in the past five months before getting reports of three more confirmed downtown, another two uptown, and at least four reported on the lower East side of Central City.

Kramer says she is out of her depth dealing with this.

Joe agrees to help Kramer lock down the city and coordinate the protocols needed to keep the police safe. This includes keeping any cops grieving loved ones off the street.

Some of the officers involved in the effort to fight Deathstorm are Korber, Matlin, Martinez, and Howe.

Allegra says there are no media tips regarding Deathstorm on the Central City Citizen hotline.

Barry hits upon the idea of using Cecile to track Deathstorm.

Cecile risks overloading her neural synapses using her powers in this way, but she says she has to risk it given that Deathstorm has killed over a dozen people at this point.

Caitlin tells Frost that she feels guilty, blaming herself for Deathstorm's rise to power.

Caitlin also says she feels like she's lost Ronnie a second time.

Sue is shown reading Uncaged Desire by Rebecca Silver - a romance novel by Mick Rory's penname. 

Deon shows up and introduces himself to Sue.

Iris' headaches are getting worse.

Deon already knows about Tinya's mom. However, he didn't learn about it until after it had become a part of the past, which is now how the Still Force is meant to work.

Iris' illness has apparently infected the Still Force, as near as Deon can figure. This is why his powers are weakening.

Deon says he will look for Renee Wazoo once he has his strength back, but right now it's taking all he can do to keep Iris and himself stable. As it is, he can see the future of everyone except Iris.

Deon suddenly dissipates into a cloud of Still Force particles, the same way that Rene Wazoo did..

Once Cecile is connected to STAR Labs tracking satellites, Chester is able to locate Deathstorm inside of STAR Labs.

Deathstorm speaks through Cecile and threatens to kill everyone if they don't give him Cailin.

only way they all live is if he gets Caitlin

Allegra is confronted by a vision of Ultraviolet in the hall of STAR Labs.

Allegra knocks herself out releasing a Spectral discharge trying to fight the fake Ultraviolet.

They determine this was another Deathstorm illusion, but have no idea why he would be trying to haunt Allegra now.

Sue once crashed a royal wedding in some country and bought the castle, which prevented her from being arrested. 

Sue talks Iris through her pain by telling her to fight for her future with Bart, Nora and Barry.

Joe makes mention of  The Thinker, Zoom, Cicada and Bloodwork

Deathstorm attacks Frost and kidnaps Caitlin.

The Flash chases Deathstorm to a carnival, Ripley's Wild World, where it burns several people in a crowd.

Deathstorm abandons Caitlin, saying she is not ready yet.

Cecile says she can feel an intense level of grief inside Caitlin

Deathstorm has killed four more people.

Caitlin says that Deathstorm seems to be trying to change her - not kill her.

Barry noticed that when Deathstorm disappears, there is portal and the space behind it resembles the place he saw in 601 when Chester's consciousness became trapped in a singularity. 

Frost volunteers to be turned into an Anti-Deathstorm with the MAC.

The final scene shows something seeming to stalk Iris and Sue outside Iris and Barry's apartment. This is revealed to be Eddie Thawne, apparently alive and well. It is unclear if this is a Deathstroke illusion or a side-effect of Iris' time sickness.

The Fridge Factor

Captain Kramer is made to look completely incompetent. Granting, that's a completely fair assessment given the way the character was hired into a job for which she had no qualifications, she has a breakdown only to allow Joe to come in and save the day.


The Bottom Line

An utterly nonsensical episode, even ignoring all the technobabble.

The Flash Episode Guide: Season 8, Episode 11 - Resurrection

 For a summary of the episode guide layout & categories, click here.

Plot

Barry and Chester think they've found a way to stop the Cold-Fusion Killer once and for all, but Caitlin may endanger everything when she enacts her own plan, believing the "Black Flame" to be a resurrected Ronnie Raymond.

Influences

Green Lantern: Blackest Night (character of Deathstorm and references to raising the dead.) and Ghostbusters (the Cold Fusion trap resembles the ghost traps)


Goofs

Virtually every character in the show is out of character in this episode. Caitlin, usually the cool, emotionless voice of reason, is pushed to make a leap of faith based on a hunch. Barry, ever the optimist who believes in the power of love, says they can't take the chance Caitlin is wrong in trying to resurrect Ronnie. And every single person who said the sanctity of life prevented them from letting Thawne die six episodes earlier is suddenly all in favor killing Ronnie to prevent further deaths.

Cecile claims she is sure the Blackfire Killer is Ronnie after making mental contact with him. It's unclear how, given that she didn't know Ronnie.

Why did Sue come back to Central City to deliver the news of Iris' disappearance in person? Even allowing that her phone had blipped out of existence, it's not like she couldn't access another phone and call STAR Labs or the Central City Citizen to get a message to Barry. 


Performances

Danielle Panabaker and Robbie Amell have real chemistry in the flashback scenes showing Caitlin and Ronnie's romance. It's a real shame they didn't get to work together more in the earlier seasons of The Flash and their courtship here makes the reveal at the end all the sadder.


Artistry

The design for Deathstorm is nice.


Flash Facts

The Cold Fusion Killer/Black Flame of earlier episodes is revealed to be an entity called Deathstorm. Originally making his first official appearance in Brightest Day #10 in November 2010, Deathstorm was born of a fusion of the Firestorm Matrix and the power of the Black Lantern Corps following Ronnie Raymond's resurrection as a Black Lantern during the Blackest Night event.

The Arrowverse version of Deathstorm seems to have been born as a result of Ronnie Raymond's death. However, it is unclear just what the source of his power is.

Allegra name drops the Blackest Night event, in which the Green Lantern villain Nekkron attempted to take over the universe with an army of the undead. This seems to be teased when Allegra discusses the potential of the Firestorm splicer to resurrected the dead if used improperly.

Technobabble

Chester encodes the Cold Fusion Sphere with Frost and Dr. Tannhauser's cryokinetic RNA signatures. This will enable them to use it to track the Blackfire Killer without risking their lives.

Using the data on the Blackfire Killer gathered from it's brief time within the NCCU, Caitlin determines that the cold fusion radiation readings are 10-to-the-negative 28 watts, aka Hawking radiation. This kind of radiation is only found within a singularity.

The first law of thermodynamics dictates that matter cannot be created or destroyed, only changed. Caitlin theorizes that the pressure from when the horizons of the singularity merged broke down Ronnie's body into pure thermodynamic energy. 

When a human body dies, the brain becomes flooded with ACTH - the same hormone the human brain creates when it experiences grief. Caitlin guesses this gave him an attraction to the same hormone, which is why he's been seeking to merge with grieving people and killing them in the process.

Chester says they can combine the Quantum Splicer that created Firestorm with Eva McCulloch's R-CEM chips to grow a new body for Robbie.

The Quantum Splicer works by bombarding the user's atoms with energy to create fission, but it requires the participant to be willing. If the user rejects the splicer, their atomic structure would become unstable, resulting in an endothermic explosion.

Chester determines that once they trap the Black Fire Killer in the Cold Fusion Sphere, they can kill him by removing the oxidizing agents.

Apart from an occasional irregularity in his amygdala function, Ronnie seems to be perfectly fine according to this post-resurrection physical.


Dialogue Triumphs

(Caitlin reveals that she planned to propose to Ronnie.)
Ronnie: Whoa, whoa, whoa, you were gonna propose?
Caitlin: Yes. Because I love you so much, Ronnie Raymond, it freaks me out. But everything is ruined now.
Ronnie: No, no, no, no, it's not ruined, okay? I know you wanted to go to that bed and breakfast where we first fell in love, but maybe we need to stop trying to recreate the past and focus on the future, okay? Because when I look at you, I see forever, and I want forever to start right now. 

Frost: I'm really worried, Catie.
Caitlin: Then why won't you help me?
Frost:  Not about Ronnie, about you. Look, when Ronnie died, you and me weren't even you and me. I was still in your subconscious. But even then, I could feel your pain the moment you realized he was gone. And that night when you went to bed, and every night after that. But as bad as that was, watching you pull away from everyone who loves you was even worse, and it's happening again.
Caitlin: I'm sorry you felt all that pain. But did you feel anything else?
Frost: I remember how happy you were before he died. Which is why I got this.
(Frost holds up the Quantum Splicer.)
Caitlin: What about Barry?
Frost: Sure, Barry's family, but you're blood, and I will always have your back. (sighs) But you got to promise me something, all right? You will never shut yourself off from me or the rest of the team, all right?
Caitlin: I promise. And, Frost... Thank you.
Frost: You got it.


Continuity

The episode opens with a flashback to 2012, showing how Caitlin and Ronnie met. She mistook him for a plumber when he came down to the medical lab at STAR Labs seeking treatment for a second degree burn while fitting a high-pressure coil.

Caitlin and Ronnie bonded over a shared love of kit building, with Ronnie saying his job is basically him playing with LEGOs of steel and concrete.

In the present, the Blackfire Killer appears to Caitlin and tells her that she can save him. When asked how, he says "memories in the snow."

Picking up from her last scene in 810, Tinya becomes upset, thinking that Iris just killed her mother and runs off.

Iris passes out while having a time sickness seizure.

Sue tries to call Barry, but her phone disappears in a puff of green Still Force particles.

Joe and Cecile went through Captain Kramer's files and found three people who died in a fire of undetermined origin within the past six months. They are Colin Smith, Megan Landa and Veronica Binning. 

Running on the theory that the Blackfire Killer feeds on grief, Joe determined that Megan and Colin both recently lost a parent and Veronica lost her sister as a child.

Caitlin determines that she is the common link between all the Blackfire Killings and tells Team Flash about her encounter with the killer and her belief that it is Ronnie Raymond resurrected somehow.

Caitlin says Parker Stefano, the third Blackfire Killing victim from 809, was her yoga instructor. The first two victims from 808, Stan Mullen and Donna Winters, were working at O'Shaughnessy during Caitlin and Frost's double date in 807.

Caitlin says the three latest victims attended a bio-chem conference where they were all panelists on an Applied Sciences lecture.

Barry points out that they know the Blackfire Killer is telepathic and can read minds after its encounter with Chester in 809.

Caitlin refers to the events of 201 and points out that Ronnie died in a singularity, which is consistent with the energy put out by the Black Fire Killer.

Barry urges Caitlin to take it slow and give him time to double-check the radiation data. She agrees to let him work on it while she talks to her boyfriend, Marcus, about what is going on.

Caitlin tells Marcus that she works with The Flash and that she thinks her husband has come back from the dead.

Marcus cuts Caitlin off before she can give him the break-up speech and quotes Plato before leaving her.

Frost talks to Barry about what's going on, as they both independently decide to prepare the Cold Fusion Sphere.

Frost says she wants to believe Caitlin, but she shares Barry's concerns about why, if the Black Fire Killer is Ronnie, it's just now coming back.

The events of 810 are confirmed to have taken place one day earlier.

Frost points out Barry's hypocrisy for being reluctant to trust Caitlin's hunch, pointing out that he'd be all on-board for taking a chance if it was Iris' life in danger.

Allegra tells Chester that he should sell merch for his streaming series.

Allegra is shocked to find out Chester is sharing the specs for the Quantum Splicer on his show.

Chester defends his actions, saying that science is all about sharing and cooperation. He points to one follower, WookieLover77, who is using his drone design to deliver supplies to refugees in starving countries.

Allegra says there is a lot of difference between a drone and a quantum splicer and that it isn't worth the risk if someone less ethical than Chester used that technology to raise the dead.

Allegra refers to her cousin's death and says that death is a part of life and should not be experimented with, referring to death as "noche mas negra," - the blackest night. 

Chester finally agrees to keep the splicer specs off-line.

As Cecile arrives in STAR Labs, the lights around her begin flickering and she feels great pain as the Blackfire Killer speaks to her and asks where Caitlin is.

Cecile says that she believes the Blackfire Killer is Ronnie, but that he is in great pain and begging to be set free.

Barry tells Caitlin they can't go through with her plan and should try to end Ronnie's suffering rather than try to bring him back to life. He justifies this decision by referring to the events of 301 and the problems caused by Flashpoint and by his inability to cope with his father's death.

Caitlin points out Barry's hypocrisy and recalls all the times Team Flash moved Heaven and Earth to try and save Iris over a lot less evidence than she has.

Caitlin says that if Barry and the rest of the team won't help her, she will work on her own.

In a flashback to 2013, Caitlin and Ronnie plan to celebrate their one year anniversary with a trip to Mapleville, to the bed and breakfast they went to on their first weekend together as a couple.

Ronnie apparently was forced to stay up all night with Cisco waiting in line to get the new Call of Duty game.

Tinya attacks Iris at her hotel room and seems to phase her out of existence.

When Sue asks what Tinya did, Tinya says Sue will find out if she ever tries to come after her again.

After talking with Cecile, Barry decides to use the Cold Fusion Sphere to trap the Black Fire Killer.

Frost offers to talk to Caitlin about what the team has decided.

In the flashback to 2013, it is revealed that Ronnie and Caitlin got stuck in the snow near Piedmont State Park on the way to Mapleville. Caitlin reveals that she was going to propose to Ronnie. Ronnie, in turn, reveals that he was going to propose to her and he already had the ring picked out.

Frost steals the Quantum Splicer and gives it to Caitlin.

Caitlin remembers where Ronnie proposed and guesses that is where he was talking about "Memories in the snow."

A group of campers is attacked by black fire in Piedmont State Park while telling ghost stories.

Allegra creates a light path to guide the civilians to safety.

Frost freezes the Cold Fusion Sphere before Barry can use it.

Caitlin uses the Quantum Splicer and seemingly restores Ronnie to normal.

Barry admits that he was wrong and says he should have believed in Caitlin and Ronnie.

Caitlin says she thinks the rest of the team who never met Ronnie will like him.

Ronnie reportedly played Dungeons and Dragons in college.

Cecile doesn't understand why her powers were so off-the-mark when it came to Ronnie.

Barry goes home, where Sue is waiting for him and tells him that Iris disappeared.

Caitlin discovers Ronnie has gotten out of his hospital bed. As she looks for him, the lights go out.

When she finds Ronnie, he transforms into a man of black fire and introduces himself as Deathstorm. 

Deathstorm confirms that Ronnie is dead and that he was born when he died.


Location

Central City - 2012
Central City - 2013
Coast City - 2022


The Fridge Factor

Caitlin is made to look unreasonable and overemotional throughout the episode, culminating in the reveal that she's responsible for making Deathstorm more powerful than ever.


The Boomerang Factor

Honestly, it's weird that it took them three weeks to figure out Caitlin was the link between all the Cold Fusion killings and that was somehow because nobody told Caitlin about all the victims until now, despite her working on the case for a week!


The Bottom Line

If the writers aren't intentionally trying to make the audience hate Caitlin's character at this point, I'd be shocked. As it is, this episode is a prime example of bending your characters to suit the story you want to tell rather than the other way around. The only thing that redeems it is how cute Caitlin and Ronnie are together and how well the performances make us want to root for them. It is also gratifying to see Caitlin and Frost call Barry out on his BS, even though it turns out he was right all along.

The Flash Episode Guide: Season 8, Episode 10 - Reckless

 For a summary of the episode guide layout & categories, click here.

Plot

When the Cold-Fusion Killer targets Frost in her own apartment, she begins planning how to use herself as bait to trap them, despite Barry and Caitlin's objection. At the same time, Iris' efforts to help Tinya find her birth mother cause more harm than good.

Influences

Doctor Who (technobabble regarding Iris' time sickness) and Legion of Superheroes comics (character of Phantom Girl).


Goofs

Caitlin is said to be on vacation with her boyfriend in the Wine Country, but returns when she hears about Frost's injuries. It is implied that Barry brought her back to Central City, yet at the end of the episode Caitlin goes to call her boyfriend to tell him what is going on, saying that "He has no idea what happened today" and she hasn't told him about working with The Flash yet. So did Caitlin just leave her boyfriend on the other side of the country with no excuse?

Cold fusion, it should be noted, is not cold. It is cold in that it can occur at temperatures below that found inside a star. It is certainly not "like frostbite, only a thousand times more lethal."


Performances

Danielle Panabaker does a great job playing against herself as Caitlin and Frost. She also gets a great silent acting moment, as Frost, hugging her mother for the first time... looking uncomfortable but slowly settling into it.


Artistry

The black fire effects are more convincing this week.

Technobabble

Deon claims that the temporal mutations he's been tracking are all coming from Iris.

Deon says that he had been treating Iris' condition like a virus giving her symptoms but now it seems that she is the cause of the time fractures forming around her.

An SR37 Alert on the Team Flash warning app is a break-in at STAR Labs' medical lab.

Dr. Tannhauser theorizes that the Black Fire is targeting Frost because her powers are cryokinetic, like the fire.

A fusion containment housing is needed to trap the Black Fire - one that can absorb and amplify Frost's cryokinetic signature. So long as she's in proximity, the unit can amplify her cryokinetic signature and attract the fire.

Chester suggests using the fusion sphere from the Artificial Speed Force to speed up the process.

At one point Chester has to compensate for the possibility of a reconfiguration flip at the subatomic level while getting the fusion sphere set up.

Dr. Tannhauser suggests that two cryokinetic signatures could create a signal too enticing for the Black Fire to resist.

Dr. Tannhauser scanned herself for residual meta-genome signatures in her body, determining that a latent cryogene had been activated. 

After the second attempt, Chester says that with a strong enough signal the sphere could work without someone's cryo-kinetic RNA in close proximity. This means there is no need to use anyone as bait.


Dialogue Triumphs

Joe: Sometimes, the hardest part about being a leader is letting go and trusting the ones you've trained to make the call themselves.


Dialogue Disasters

Frost: Right now I kinda feel like the stupid person in the horror movie who runs into the house instead of running away from it. 


Continuity

This episode picks up right where 809 ended, with Deon talking to Iris about her time sickness.

Deon and Iris figure out that her increasing instability is due to her asking Deon to reverse her treatments in 803. (Curiously, Deon has no memory of this, despite his power.)

Deon says Iris needs to stay in Coast City for the time being to stabilize, but she should be able to move around the city without issue.

Barry offers to stay with Iris, but she insists he needs to return to Coast City and deal with the Cold-Fusion Killer - now called Black Fire.

Frost is attacked by black fire in her apartment, while working on a new art piece.

The black fire's heat is so intense it can make Frost sweat and it burns her trying to touch her.

Joe, Cecile, Barry, Chester and Allegra discuss what they've found, affirming that all the Black Fire victims so far, except Chester, were suffering from depression.

Parker DeStefano, the yoga instructor who was the Cold-Fusion Killer's third victim, is revealed to have been going through grief counseling following the death of her fiancée and to have started dating again before her death.

Allegra has Vanya and Aariz at the Central City Citizen researching the other victims looking for common links.

Joe and Cecile go through all the files Captain Kramer gave them regarding suspicious fires that might be related to the Cold-Fusion Killer dating back to 2013.

Barry finds Frost breaking into the medical lab at STAR Labs, trying to treat her burn herself.

Caitlin is said to be on a wine country tour with her new boyfriend.

Frost says she isn't grieving anyone, so she can't think of why the Black Fire targeted her.

Frost meets with her mother, Dr. Carla Tannhauser, and asks for her help in trapping the Black Fire.

Frost plans to use herself as bait, while Dr. Tannhauser builds something to trap the Black Fire.

Barry doesn't want to risk Frost's life, saying it is too risky to use her as bait.

Frost asks Barry if he really believes Iris isn't risking her life right now and asks how that is different than her doing the same.

Dr. Carla Tannhauser is said to be the world's top specialist in cold fusion.

Carla offers Chester a job, impressed with his work on the trap. He declines, saying he likes working at STAR Labs too much, even though the pay would be better.

The Black Fire senses a trap and knocks Frost out.

Barry gets Caitlin to return to STAR Labs to treat Frost. She is furious Frost is risking her life.

Iris and Sue take Tinya to the agency that handled her adoption. Unfortunately, there's a no-contact rule that prevents them from giving Tinya any information on her birth mother. Only their board of directors could override it.

Sue's uncle Leroy is the chairman of the board of directors for the adoption agency and is also an orphan himself. One phone call gets him to override the no-contract rule.

After Iris, Sue and Tinya leave, all the furniture in the waiting room of the adoption agency blinks out of existence.

Tinya wonders if her mom is even going to want to meet her. Iris reassures her by talking about her making peace with own mother during Season 2.

Frost's stabbing herself to catch Chillblaine in 707 is held up as proof of her reckless behavior.

Caitlin accuses her mother as seeing Frost as a science experiment instead of a daughter and threatens to abandon her mother if Frost dies.

Barry tells Joe he still thinks Frost's plan is too dangerous, but Joe suggests he's really worried about Iris and that sometimes, when you're a leader, you have to trust your followers.

Dr. Tannhauser thinks Caitlin had a point and tells Frost, frankly, she needs to be more of a mother to her. This includes straight talk about her needing to stop being reckless.

Dr. Tannhauser says that Frost is just like her father, who would do anything to protect his loved ones.

Dr. Tannhauser reveals that her cryokinetic metagene was activated after the events of 519. She hasn't manifested powers yet, but has the potential to do so.

Caitlin is not happy about risking her mother and sister, but agrees to help check their plan.

The Black Fire is released after Dr. Tannhauser has a cardiac arrest while in the middle of trapping it.

Joe and Cecile found nothing in the records of all the old fires.

Barry and Chester are confident they can now use the trap to catch the Black Fire without using Frost as bait.

Dr. Tannhauser stays with Caitlin and Frost for the night.

Dr. Tannhauser tells Frost that she loves her and hugs her for the first time.

Tinya's mother is a woman named Renee Wazoo.

Renee reveals that she was an unwed 16 year old when she got pregnant and she wanted to keep Tinya, but her parents were furious and insisted she put the baby up for adoption.

Renee says that giving up Tinya was the biggest regret of her life, which was spent moving from crummy retail job to crummy retail job. She said the only thing that kept her going was the thought that her daughter might have had a better life with a loving family.

Tinya says that didn't happen.

Iris has a seizure and Renee tries to comfort her. Shortly after that, she disintegrates into a cloud of still force particles.


Location

Coast City

The Bottom Line

A filler episode, apart from the final two minutes. It is tolerable, however, because of the focus on Frost and the Phantom Girl storyline being limited to two scenes.

The Flash Episode Guide: Season 8, Episode 9 - Phantoms

 For a summary of the episode guide layout & categories, click here.

Plot

Iris follows a story to Coast City, as the rest of Team Flash focuses on the mystery of a fire-wielding serial killer.

Influences

Legion of Super-Heroes (character of Phantom Girl), X-Men (Tinya seems more like Kitty Pryde than her comic book countpart, particularly with her power to short out electronics) and It. (a serial killer with monstrous powers who feeds on fear.)


Goofs

Deon's demand that Iris not tell her family about her worsening time illness is idiotic and a prime example of the kind of random decision to keep secrets needlessly that has made the later seasons of The Flash painful to watch.

Where is Ralph Dibny in all this? Sue says the Black Hole has finally been defeated so what happened to her partner in crime fighting? 

Iris tracks the Coast City Phantom using a metahuman tracking app that measures the ambient levels of dark matter tied to the meta using their powers. However, as has been shown in earlier episodes (as in the case of Frost and her father) that only works with metahumans created by the STAR Labs particle accelerator explosion. Given Tinya is implied to be a Coast City native, the app shouldn't have worked for her. (It's possible Tinya lived in Central City eight years ago.)

Iris' decision to try and drag Tinya into the limelight seems really exploitative, even ignoring her age and the fact that Tinya has no desire to be a superhero.


Performances

Natalie Dreyfuss is a delight, as always, as Sue. Her interactions with Candice Patton as Iris are the high point of the episode, primarily because it's the most convincing friendship with another woman Iris has had on the show with someone who isn't a work friend of Barry or a subordinate at her work.


Artistry

The special effects for the black fire are generally good.


Flash Facts

A billboard in Coast City advertises Ferris Air. This is the employer of both Carol Ferris (aka Star Sapphire) and Hal Jordan (Green Lantern) in the comics.

This episode introduces the Arrowverse version of Phantom Girl, aka The Coast City Phantom (CCP). She is revealed to be a teen runaway named Tinya, who is trying to find her mother, who was a barista at the CC Jitters in Coast City, California.

In the comics, Phantom Girl first appeared in Action Comics #276 in May 1961 and was created by Superman co-creator Jerry Siegel and artist Jim Mooney. A native of the planet Bgztl, Tinya Wazzo had the power to phase through solid matter, which was innate to her people due to Bgztl existing partly in the fourth dimension. She joined the Legion of Super Heroes and also used the codename Apparition. 

Technobabble

Chester installs a cold fusion alarm module for the STAR Labs satellites, capable of detecting any rapid drops in barometric anomalies around Central City.

The Cold Fusion Killer's fire powers are cryokinetic, meaning that their power output is detected as extreme cold pockets.

Chester is able to trap a sample of the Cold Fusion Killer's black fire using a micro-catalyzed containment unit. He and Ray Palmer designed the device together as part of the foundation Ray started in 801.An an 8-inch vacuum-sealed borosilicate canister with an ionic-fused base and cap, it preserves the vaporized integrity of gases.

Chester hopes to analyze the black fire and, after learning its molecular properties, reprogram the STAR Labs satellites to seek out the source.

Iris' metahuman tracking app measures dark matter readings.

STAR Labs' fire suppression system detects carbon dioxide. As such, it does nothing to try and stop the cold fusion fires, which do not generate carbon dioxide like normal flames.

Sue bluffs Tinya with a molecular destabilizing matrix she claims can knock out any metahuman in a three block radius by destabilizing their powers. (It's actually a paper weight.)

The cold fusion fires start in a subzero state, but they still give off high levels of kinetic energy, which is what allows it to burn people despite a lack of measurable heat.

Chester begins searching STAR Labs for cold catalyzed reactions by tracking muon-catalyzed heat signatures. He determines that the cold flames are converging on the Speed Lab.

Dialogue Triumphs

(Sue threatens to hurt Tinya with an exotic weapon.)
Tinya: Yeah, I thought you two helped people?
Sue: (gesturing to Iris) Oh, she does. Me, it depends on my mood. 


Continuity

Deon, the Still Force avatar, agrees to give Iris a check-up even tough she's been stable for months.

Iris tells Deon about the lost time she experienced in 808.

Iris has vague memories of her meeting with Deon in 803, but neither one of them remember the incident.

Deon still has no idea how someone gets a time sickness, but he plans to look into it.

Deon detects mutations in Iris' aura which may be a result of his treatment. He promises to look into that as well, but asks Iris not to tell anyone until he knows for sure what is going on.

Joe takes some of the evidence from Barry's investigation into the Cold Fusion Killer to look into on his own.

Caitlin is said to have gone on a spontaneous getaway vacation with Marcus to see Dear Evan Hansen in Metropolis. 

According to Frost, Caitlin and Marcus have becoming nauseatingly weepy watching musicals together at home. 

Chester creates a new module to track the Cold Fusion Killer.

Sue Dearbon is in town, making her first appearance since 714.

Sue says she's on a tour of her family's companies, having taken over management in the wake of her parents being sent to prison and the destruction of the Black Hole syndicate. 

Sue is going to Coast City to inspect part of a line of luxury hotels she owns, but is hoping to see the Coast City Phantom.

The Coast City Phantom (or CCP) is reportedly the first metahuman to ever be reported in Coast City.

Sue invites Iris to come with her and look for the Phantom.

Chester detects a cold spot at 138 South Devon Road, but the Cold Fusion Killer is gone before he can get there. The location is a yoga studio.

The third victim of the Cold Fusion Killer was a yoga instructor named Parker DeStefano.

Iris and Sue search around downtown Coast City, as that's where most of the sightings of the Phantom took place.

Sue guesses that Iris wanted an excuse to get out of town and asks about how her relationship with Barry is. Iris changes the subject, having used the meta-tracking app on her phone to find a ping on the Phantom.

The app leads Sue and Iris to a teenage girl named Tinya in a CC Jitters, who is not interested in talking to them.

Sue observes Tinya placing something through her backpack.

Tinya is able to short out Iris' phone by phasing a fingertip through it.

Chester falls asleep while working in the lab and dreams that he hears voices before the black fire grows out of control.

Cecile claims to have felt Chester's fear.

Frost notes that Chester is the most touchy-feely person she knows and he is clearly upset about something and hiding it.

Allegra volunteers to try and get Chester to open up.

Sue tries to download Chester's app, but with her substandard data plan it will take over seven hours.

Iris says they don't need to track Tinya. They just have to research her.

Iris opens up to Sue about her illness and the mutations.

Sue says she was in the same place Iris is after finding out about her parents, but advises her that you can't run from a problem like that.

Iris realizes that Tinya may be on the run as well.

As Allegra is talking with Chester, black flames fill his lab, like in his nightmare.

Barry puts out the flames.

Chester reprograms the satellites again to include the interior of STAR Labs, which is why the alarms didn't go off.

Barry realizes the Cold Fusion Killer must be projecting the flames remotely. This leads him to search the city until he finds where they are hiding.

Sue and Iris ambush Tinya as she's going into an apartment.

Iris reveals that she found out who Tinya is by searching the database of missing people in Coast City. This led her to discover that she was a runway who was in foster care.

Iris and Sue agree to help Tinya find her missing birth mother, who was a barista at the CC Jitters where Iris and Sue first found Tinya.

Chester tells Allegra about his father died in a car fire 24 years ago and how he's been afraid of fire and corpses burned to death ever since.

Chester says he thinks the killer is his father's ghost, because he's started having visions of his father's death.

Allegra says there is no way Chester's father, who he said was a loving man, would ever become a vengeful ghost.

Allegra doesn't believe in ghosts.

Cecile claims to feel the pain of thousands of people, maybe more, radiating from the black fires.

The black flames manifest an illusion of Chester's father, which tries to take his hand so they can join togehter.

Cecile claims that whatever intelligence is behind the illusion feeds on grief.

Chester is able to drive away the killer by affirming that his father would be proud of him and what he does every day.

Joe determines that all three of the Cold Fusion Killer's victims were also suffering from depression following bad circumstances.

Stan Mullen, the bar manager, lost all his belongings to foreclosure.

Donna Winters, the waitress, lost her sister a week before her death. 

Parker DeStefano had just lost her fiancé and childhood sweetheart to cancer. 

Cecile says it is almost like the black fire itself was sentient, as she felt passion, desire and determination from the flames.

Barry concludes that the flames must be alive.

Iris decides to stay in Coast City for a while longer to help Tinya.

Deon appears to Iris and says he figured out what is wrong with her and it is not good news.

Location

Coast City, California.


Untelevised Adventures

Sue Dearbon claims to have encountered a number of metahumans while she was traveling around the world fighting the Black Hole.

Whatever Iris and Sue do to figure out who Tinya is.


The Boomerang Factor

One wonders if Deon really knows what he is doing in regards to treating Iris' time illness since he isn't even sure how someone catches one.


The Bottom Line

Passable, largely because of the mystery of the Cold Fusion Killer, if not the actual horror show built around him. My money is that it's the Flame of Py'tar, now free to rage without Despero controlling it. In any case, the show continues to tease stories that are far more interesting than what is shown on camera and I think most fans would rather see more of Sue traveling the world and meeting other metahumans than the adventures of Team Citizen. 

The Flash Episode Guide: Season 8, Episode 8 - The Fire Next Time

 For a summary of the episode guide layout & categories, click here.

Plot

When an paroled metahuman criminal is accused of murder in a seemingly open-and-shut case, Barry goes all-out in both his personas to see justice done. Meanwhile, Iris tries to give Allegra an opportunity to mentor a new writer.

Influences

Law and Order (the episode is more concerned with legal proceedings than usual.)


Goofs

Cecile's new rule against using her powers to read if people are guilty or innocent seems to have been introduced only to prolong the drama of the episode and the question of whether or not Jaco Birch has become a killer. (It's also somewhat nonsensical given the whole reason Cecile became a defense attorney in the first place was so that her work as a lawyer wouldn't harm innocent people, after almost sending Allegra Garcia to prison.)

Iris' behavior as editor-in-chief is completely unprofessional. No serious head editor would allow a staff writer to go behind the back of a lower ranked editor after having a pitch rejected. (This is not to say this sort of thing does not happen at less than reputable publishers, but it's hard to make Iris look at all competent when she does this sort of thing, especially after the revelation at the end that Taylor is scheming to take Allegra's job.) It nothing else, Iris should have made it clear that she was trying to get Allegra to mentor Taylor instead of trusting Allegra to automatically work to help the newer writer to develop a weak idea.

Jaco's confrontation with Donna Winters doesn't make a lot of sense unless he is guilty.

Jaco's being treated like a hero for stopping a volcano from destroying Central City falls flat considering it was his powers that accidentally created he eruption in the first place.


Performances

The scene of Joe and Barry discussing Barry's father and Jaco's case is a great moment for Jesse L. Martin and Grant Gustin.


Flash Facts

The title of the episode comes from an essay by James Baldwin about racism in America.

The social media influencer Taylor wants to interview is a woman named Rose Levin. In the comics, Rose Levin was an ancestor of Booster Gold, who wrote a popular blog devoted to proving that Booster Gold was also the hero Supernova.

Technobabble

Barry notes that Stan Mullen's body is burned all the way through, but there's no fire damage to the ground underneath his corpse or any signs of fire damage elsewhere in the bar. This suggests a metahuman attack, as nothing else could create a fire that violates the laws of physics in that way.

Chester confirms the local dark matter readings are consistent with a metahuman attack.

Barry's tomography reports regarding Donna Winter's body confirm the thermal lesions on her body match the marks on Stan Mullen's body exactly. Barry says there is no pyrokinetic meta who could replicate burns like that even if they tried.

Jaco Birch's powers are tied to his emotional state, with his fire becoming hotter the more angry he is.

Chester cross-references the heat signature from both murder victims and determines the signatures produced an anomalous heat effect created by non-composites reacting to hydrogen isotopes, i.e. cold fusion. This proves that Jaco Birch can't be the killer since his powers come from absorbing heat and redirecting it as fire.

Jaco's powers are tied to the earth beneath wherever he's standing. When he became upset at the thought of losing his son, he absorbed so much heat from the planet's core that he opened up a lava channel under Central City.

The Flash phases into the water table under the city releases it directly into the lava channel. This stops the eruption but not the massive heat exchange that would have cooked the city if Jaco hadn't used his powers to absorb the heat.


Dialogue Triumphs

Barry: Joe, the look in my dad's eyes that night... It was the same look in Birch's eyes when they arrested him. Look of an innocent man... desperate not to lose his son... Begging someone to believe him.
Joe: And you do.
Barry: Yeah, I do. I just keep thinking about all the time my dad lost. (sighs) All the birthdays we spent, separated by plexiglass. I can't let Birch and his son go through that if he's innocent. (inhales deeply) I don't know. Maybe the team's right. Maybe I'm making something out of nothing. You think maybe I've had blinders up this whole time?
Joe: Maybe. Or... You can see something they can't. Look, what you went through, I wouldn't wish on anyone. But what it did, was it gave you the ability to believe in the underdog when no one else is willing to. So... If your gut tells you... To not give up on Birch... Then for Henry's sake, don't. Not yet.


Dialogue Disasters

Barry: The fact that Birch ran away doesn't change the evidence. There's still nothing directly tying him to Mullen's death.
Cecile: Sure, Barry, sure, but fleeing custody is not exactly exculpatory, and I am saying that as his lawyer.


Continuity

The episode opens at O'Shaughnessy's, where bartender Donna Winters leaves manager Stan Mullen alone.

Smoke fills the bar just before Stan is burned to death.

A calendar reveals that it is February 1st.

Iris suggests going out to dinner until she sees the calendar, at which point she suggest that she and Barry have a night in or that they both call in sick. Barry dismisses this, however, saying there's too much going on at work and that it is "just another day." It is later revealed that it is Dr. Henry Allen's birthday.

Chester is revealed to have a fear of fire.

After looking at the crime scene and hearing from Donna that Stan had gotten into an argument with a patron the night before, he recalls something and shows her a photo asking if she recognizes the man in it. She confirms that she does. 

The man in question is Jaco "The Hotness" Birch.

Jaco first appeared in 416, where he accidentally gained the powers of Eric Frye because of Melting Pot. It is unclear if he never lost the powers afterward or if he regained fire-generation powers following Crisis on Infinite Earths. In any case, he apparently served time for arson at Iron Heights and was recently paroled due to his good behavior.

Chester notes that Jaco was a thief, not a killer, from what he knew of his record.

Barry notes that Jaco never had the fine control needed to kill someone without burning a building down.

The CC Citizen is starting a new "citizen of the week" profile feature. 

Taylor Downs requested she be allowed to write about social influencer Rosie Levin for the first feature.

Allegra rejected the pitch, believing Rosie Levin to be the sort of pseudo-celebrity CC Media shouldn't give a platform.

Iris reveals that Taylor went to her after Allegra rejected the pitch and she approved it, saying that they need the clicks Rose Levin's 500,000 social media followers might bring in.

Allegra is not happy that her authority is being ignored. Iris says that it's her privilege as Editor In Chief to make decisions Allegra disagrees with.

To add insult to injury, Iris assigns Allegra to interview Rosie Levins with Taylor.

The CCPD approach Jaco Birch as he's showing his son Harold around his new job as an arena security guard. Harold is less than impressed.

The Flash steps in and knocks Jaco into a fountain before he can use his powers.

As Jaco is being taken away by the police in front of his son, he proclaims his innocence in a way that causes Barry to start having flashbacks of his father's arrest.

Barry approaches Cecile and asks for her advice regarding Jaco' case. Cecile agrees to represent Jaco, but refuses to use her powers to read if he is guilty or innocent.

Cecile says the case against Jaco is open-and-shut, due to his having means, motive and opportunity, in addition to the witness who saw him threatening Stan Mullen before his death.

Allegra zones out of the interview with Rose Levin, after she talks about quitting college because she found the university environment to be like a prison.

Allegra recognizes a janitor at CC Jitters as Lydia, a woman she served time with in Iron Heights.

Lydia recognizes Allegra and reads her the riot act for forgetting where she came from and not using her position to help people who are struggling.

Allegra says Lydia is right and she's going to write about her.

Jaco is concerned about his son, who was neglected by his mother while Jaco was in prison.

Jaco says his love for his son was what made him work so hard to get paroled, having his four year sentence commuted somewhat.

According to Jaco, his argument with Stan Mullen was regarding a guitar she was trying to sell. Stan only wanted to pay half what he had previously agreed.

Barry says he believes Jaco is innocent, but nobody else is convinces after Jaco escapes from the truck transporting him to holding.

Jaco confronts Donna Winters and threatens her if she doesn't recant her testimony.

Barry makes reference to Frost going on the run after Chillblaine framed her in 707 as proof Jaco could be innocent.

Donna Winters' body is found, burned in the same way as Stan Mullen's, behind O'Shaughnessy's.

Chester agrees to take a look at the data, but he's convinced Jaco is guilty too.

Barry sets up a murder board in his lab at CCPD.

Joe checks on Barry and says it's been eight years since he saw one of those, in reference to the one Barry made for his father's case.

Joe recalls that Henry Allen missed his 45th birthday party due to an emergency call. Henry was disappointed, but Joe comforted him saying there would be other birthday parties. Unfortunately, it was the last one he enjoyed as a free man.

Allegra writes about Lydia what what ex-cons like here are going through to make ends meet.

Iris agrees its a much better piece than Taylor's fluff piece, but says it isn't what she wanted her to write. She also wanted Allegra to mentor Taylor and help her develop her idea to be more in depth.

Despite this, Iris decides to run Allegra's piece as the first CC Citizen of the Week profile.

Chester finds proof that Jaco can't be the killer. Unfortunately, it comes as he attacks the social services worker transporting his son.

An earthquake begins shaking the city as Jaco is holding up the convoy.

With the Flash advising him, Jaco is able to stop the eruption and save the city.

Jaco is found innocent and given custody of his son.

Allegra tries to apologize to Taylor, but she swears to destroy Allegra.

Henry Allen was bad at softball and liked lite beer.

Henry Allen never made Barry clean his plate as a child and read him the same bedtime story whenever he wanted it - a story about a hippo trying to make friends by making cookies.

Barry asks Chester to look for more victims who died from cold fusion heat.


The Boomerang Factor

Iris is made to look utterly incompetent as an editor-in-chief, allowing Taylor to ignore the chain of command while giving Allegra a hard time for demanding her authority be respected. She also doesn't make it clear that she was trying to give Allegra some managerial experience mentoring Taylor.

Granting that Jaco Birch is presented as a hot-tempered idiot, his efforts to escape prison, confront the woman who accused him or murder and kidnap his son from social services are idiotic even by the standards of a Flash villain.


The Bottom Line

There's a good idea here and some great acting from Grant Gustin. Unfortunately, all the scenes of Joe and Barry bonding can't make up for how contrived the plot with The Hotness is and how idiotic Iris' storyline is, in how it twists reality to try and make Iris out to be this brilliant boss while she's undermining Allegra and failing to communicate her expectations beyond "because I said so."

The Flash Episode Guide: Season 8, Episode 7 - Lockdown

 For a summary of the episode guide layout & categories, click here.

Plot

When Goldface launches a bold raid on CCPD HQ, Barry will have to work around Captain Kristen Kramer to save the day. Meanwhile, Caitlin learns a valuable lesson after accidentally running into Chillblaine and Frost while on a date.


Goofs

It is impossible to believe that Barry Allen, even as a CSI, would not be intimately familiar with the procedure for arresting a perpetrator and making the charges known to the police officers when he hands them over for a formal arrest. (If nothing else, you'd think he could write up an official statement at super-speed!)

It's even more impossible to believe that neither Joe West nor Cecile Horton would approach Barry about his apparent habit of leaving criminals tied up in CCPD HQ with no indication of what they did so they could be properly charged.

It's particularly unbelievable that the CCPD doesn't have a process for making sure its many supervillains are properly processed by its many superheroes.

Allowing that it's possible for Barry to be surprised by a gas attack, he should have recovered before the other police officers given his accelerated healing.

Why, out of all the places she could take her new boyfriend, did Caitlin take him to O'Shaughnessy's - the bar all the villains hang out and and where Chillblaine used to work? (It's possible she was intentionally trying to force a confrontation but Caitlin's dialogue suggests it wasn't intentional.)

There should probably be some kind of oversight that prevents Captain Kramer from sending the experimental anti-meta bullets (which she commissioned in the first place) to ARGUS without informing anyone.

Given that she's in contact with ARGUS and military minded, you'd think Captain Kramer would consult with them about some kind of metahuman training program rather than waiting to ask The Flash about controlling her powers. (Come to that, you'd expect the CCPD to require her to be trained in using her powers safely.)

While Goldface's efforts to educate his henchmen are laudable, it seems unlikely that he'd try to get his right-hand interested in literature by giving him a rare first edition of a book he'd never read.

Frost says that Chillblaine got her tickets to an underground rave in Keystone city. Underground raves are not ticketed events.


Performances

Grant Gustin, Jesse L. Martin and Danielle Nicolet are to be commended for keeping a straight face reading their dialogue in their scene together.

Conversely, Damion Poitier steals the show by refusing to treat his farcical dialogue with any degree of seriousness.

Flash Facts

Frost and Chillblaine's karaoke team name is The Ice Pack. In the comics, the Ice Pack was also the name of a supervillain team made up of villains with cold gimmicks, including Mr. Freeze, Captain Cold, Killer Frost, Blue Snowman, Mister Blizzard and Icicle. 


Technobabble

Chester shows off a self-flying drone based off of an AI algorithm he created on his podcast.

There are 0.35 grams of gold in a cell phone, which is apparently enough for Goldface to be able to use his powers to control phones.

Marcus tries to comfort Caitlin by telling her that last week he screwed up the blooming cycle for the Selenicereus grandiflorus he was growing at work.

The anti-meteahuman bullets contain trace amounts of dark matter.

According to Marcus, the pads of the Opuntia cacti pair perfectly with an agave spirit.

Barry is able to reset the scanner in his lab from infrared to infrasonic, turning it into a make-shift sonic stunner device that allows him and Kramer to escape Goldface.

Barry theorizes that meta-dampener cuffs short out trying to cancel out a power mimic's powers because they release RNA energy pulses that repress metagenes. Since Kramer's DNA is constantly morphing based on her adrenaline levels and proximity to other metahumans, this overloads the cuffs, which were not designed with erratic gene fluctuation in mind.


Dialogue Disasters

Too many to list, but the fact that Caitlin is dating a plant expert named Marcus Ficus pretty much sums up most of the episode's attempts at humor.


Continuity

Team Flash now has an official monitor duty roster. As the episode opens, Chester is on duty.

Chester has a Supergirl lunchbox.

Chester and his grandmother trade off on making egg salad for one another's lunches.

The events of this episode take place on a Wednesday.

Allegra shows up unannounced at STAR Labs, intending to take Chester out to lunch at Hershfield's, - a place that makes amazing chicken parmesan sandwiches.

As they are about to leave, Chester is alerted to a hold-up at Jitters, a mugging off Route 119 and a carjacking at Edwards Center.

Barry takes care of all three crimes in less than a minute and leaves the offenders tied up in CCPD HQ's lobby.

Captain Kramer complains to Barry that it will take them the rest of the day to figure out just what the criminals did since The Flash didn't leave a report or any evidence they can use. She wishes she had some way to contact The Flash directly.

Joe and Cecile think Kramer has a point, given that they had a direct line to Barry and the new CCPD doesn't have that benefit.

Barry is reluctant to give Kramer a "Flash Phone" and instead resolves to make it easier on the police by redoubling his efforts to find good evidence as a CSI.

Chester's science podcast is called The Runkyard.

Caitlin complains that Chillblaine keeps taking Frost on ridiculous dates like skydiving and clogging their social media with cutesy couple pictures.

Caitlin is meeting her new boyfriend, Dr. Marcus Ficus, for dinner at The Spanish Hamper, which is apparently the hottest restaurant in town.

This will be Caitlin's third date with Marcus.

Chester speculates on if Marcus will soon be part of Team Flash or develop plant control powers.

Barry hustles to get all the evidence needed to convict the three criminals The Flash caught, but Kramer still isn't satisfied and wants a way to talk to The Flash.

Someone gasses CCPD HQ, knocking out all the cops, including Barry.

When the police wake up, they are all wearing meta-dampener cuffs and are being held hostage by Goldface. The cuffs also explode if the wearer tries to use their powers.

Goldface reasoned that with one metahuman now running the CCPD, there were good odds that there were other metahumans on the force.

Goldface recognizes Barry as The Chemist - the villain name he used when he first encountered Goldface while undercover in 513.

Caitlin accidentally made her dinner reservations at The Spanish Hamper for January next year. She decides to take him to O'Shaughnessy's - the bar that is a frequent hangout for meta-criminals where Chillblaine used work.

It's karaoke night at O'Shaughnessy's and Frost and Chillblaine are singing Journey's "Cold As Ice."

Frost and Chillblaine suggest a double date, which Caitlin is clearly uncomfortable with. Marcus, however, is agreeable to the idea.

Goldface reveals that he's come to steal the Anti-Meta bullets that Kramer had made in Season 7.

When the bullets are not in the armor, Goldface tries to strangle Barry with his chain and says he will kill him if Kramer won't tell him where to find them.

Barry says he can use a scanner in his lab to find the bullets, based on their dark matter signature.

"Snowflake" is Chilblaine's pet name for Frost.

Chillblaine invites Marcus and Caitlin to join them in a skydiving date next week, but Caitlin is afraid of skydiving.

Caitlin tells Frost she is being naive and that Chillblaine is just going to hurt her again.

Goldface's ringtone for when Amunet Black calls him is "Love is a Battlefield." This was revealed to be their song in 611.

Amunet is apparently in London.

Barry discovers that Goldface and Amunet Black are seeing the same couples' counselor as him and Iris - Dr. Sharon Finkel. He says their relationship and their business has never been better since they started working together.

Goldface has a BA in Literature from Yale and is dismayed that his right-hand man Carver doesn't get his references to Moby Dick or even Wrath of Khan.

Goldface bought Carver a first edition of Moby DIck for his birthday.

After turning his scanner into a sonic stunner, Barry and Kramer are able to escape through a vent in his lab to a storage room for junked equipment.

Kramer's powers cause her cuffs to short out.

Kramer says her powers only work for 30 seconds at a time and only when she is stressed.

Barry suggests that Kramer use her powers to counter Goldface and take him down. She refuses to consider this, however.

Chillblaine tells Caitlin he doesn't think she hates him so much as she's afraid to take the next step with Marcus and is responding by tearing down Frost's relationship.

Kramer tells Barry that she can't control her powers, so there's no way she can copy Goldface's abilities intentionally. 

Barry realizes Kramer wants to get in touch with The Flash so he can train her to use her powers.

Barry gives Kramer a pep-talk and tells her to trust her instincts and discipline.

Kramer is able to distract Goldface long enough for Barry to remove his cuff and outrun the explosion. He is later able to make quick work of Goldface and his men.

Kramer tells Barry she sent the anti-meta bullets to ARGUS 35 weeks earlier.

Caitlin apologizes to Frost for being rude to her and Chillblaine.

Frost signs them all up for roller derby for their next double date.

Barry visits Kramer as The Flash and gives her a pager and says he wants to let her know his secret identity. However, Kramer already figured it out, saying there was no way Barry could have escaped the exploding cuff unless he were The Flash.

Joe has been studying cooking since retiring and learned how to make a doro wat.

Iris fades out of phase with time, but hides this fact from her father.


Untelevised Adventures

Frost and Chilblaine have a number of adventurous dates involving cliff diving and other extreme sports.


The Boomerang Factor

The entire episode's plot is built around the idea that The Flash has been routinely leaving criminals tied up for the police with no indication of what their crimes were and that neither Joe West nor Cecile Horton ever told Barry that this was making it impossible for them to do their jobs.


The Bottom Line

Painfully dumb on every level. The best thing that can be said about it is that it makes the ending of Armageddon seem better by comparison.