Hi folks! This is the season finale of The Flash’s eight season and, well, at this point you already know how I feel about them using Thawne so often, but this time I chose to don’t worry about that and just enjoy the ride, and you know what? It was actually fun!
1. Anger Management
To recap what happened at the end of last episode, Evil-Deon appeared Iris right when Barry was throwing a lighting bolt and she ended up “dying” and her particles were absorbed by the good Thawne, and he transformed in evil Thawne (Tom Cavanagh).
This made Barry incredibly angry, we have seen him angry before but this time he was willing to kill Thawne right at that moment, he wanted revenge, fortunately, his children Bart and Nora appeared and stopped him, but he seemed obsessed with finding Thawne and making him pay.
At one point, Cecile felt the anger irradiating from Barry and asked him how he was planning to deal with it, but for the first time he didn’t have an answer. But at least he knows something, Iris is still around somewhere (because their kids are alive), and he will find her.
2. Trapped in a stone
Meanwhile, Iris appeared in a place with Damien Darhk, she ended up inside of the Timestone that he gave to Joe back in Armageddon. Damien is dead, and this is a reflection of his conscience living in the stone, but Iris is NOT dead, her body might’ve been gone but she is still alive, as the former villain tells her, she has yet to reach her limit.
But this sets an interesting precedent, we have seen Iris’ life at risk since Savitar’s attack back in season three, she was trapped in the Mirror universe and lived with the time disease this season. She might be destined to die, but not this time. She reignites the spark between her and Barry and revives just in time to help save the day.
3. Cecile’s leveling up
All this time, Cecile’s powers have been augmented thanks to the Sage Force who clung to her and helped her become more powerful (and steal powers from others) to survive. Cecile managed to liberate the positive forces and level the field for the good guys.
Cecile may be the character that has been growing the most in the season, from being simply “Joe’s wife” she has been steadily becoming an important part of the team, and now, she practically saved the day, giving the forces the strength to come out and help Flash save the day, now she’s even patrolling on her own, making steps toward becoming a superhero.
4. Super-Reverse Flash
So, the plan of the Negative Forces is a bit complicated, their intention was to use Iris as an incubator to create a connection between the Negative Speed Force and an avatar, then, they used Barry’s lightning to finally revive Thawne, and then, they merged with him to make him a super evil version of the villain.
It was dumb, and overly elaborate, but not in a bad way, I feel that there was a decent-enough justification to have Thawne back, but he is not the villain, only the avatar to the Negative Forces, plus, his new suit was neat.
5. The balance a.k.a. Super-Flash
And if the Negative Forces are tipping the balance on their favor, the Positive ones are also going to pick an avatar, and Flash leveled up yet again, and what was interesting this time was that he chose not to fight, instead, he sat ang began meditating.
When Thawne tried to attack him and use as much power as he could, Barry managed to stop him without even moving. And the Negative Forces ended up imploding. Team Flash saved the day yet again.
At the end, the people from the future went back to 2049 and Barry and Iris sat in in a couch, together at least after two years of chaos. It was a nice, quiet finale that didn’t set up much for the new season, it just let the team be happy for a moment, ant that is all fine by me.
BONUS: We had a brief scene with Blaine waking up and the cryo-capsule that he and Caitlin were using to revive Frost got damaged, but something else came out from the capsule, and we won’t know anytime soon.
And that’s it for this season, although I definitely think that the show should have a last season, I mostly enjoyed this year of adventures, and I like the new dynamic of the team and the show itself. What did you think of this episode? Leave your comments below and join us next year for our thoughts on Season 9, officially breaking the record as the longest Arrowverse show.
In the meantime, be sure to follow or awesome Summer TV Binge 2022, where there’s surely something interesting for everybody. As always, I’ll be reviewing a new season of the always excellent Archer.
