The Flash – Phantoms review S8 E9
This Blackfire arc is providing some needed stability to The Flash.
Phantoms was another decent episode that advanced this arc in a positive way without the usual hijinks that derail too many seasons.
It helps that there’s a bit of a mystery that Team Flash needs to solve instead of just going after goofy villains.
We get a flame on reference. It’s still weird that the CW Verse would constantly shout out the MCU instead of the DC Universe.
Flash is too late to save the latest victim, but Barry and Chester do manage to snag a sample of black fire, which for some reason is freaking out our guy Chuck.
He’s starting to have some dreams of the black fire attacking him but holds true to the Team Flash creed of keeping it to himself and not sharing it with anyone. At least not until Allegra persists in asking what’s going on. The writers are doing the slow burn (pun intended) with these two, but it’s working better since their inevitable relationship is never the focus of any episode.
Chuck thinks the person in the black fire is his father. That seems odd, but it checks out when the black fire invades STAR Labs again. Cecile finally determines the black fire is feeding on Chester’s grief.
Not quite sure why it was singling Chester out though. This would have worked better if Chester was struggling with his father’s death over a few episodes instead of randomly bringing it up now.
Chuck has seemingly been in a good place with his role on Team Flash and his increasingly closer bond with Allegra. There wasn’t any trace of sadness or sorrow, so this feels kinda out of nowhere.
After Chuck fights through the initial grief onslaught, he realizes it’s not actually his father and the black fire vanishes. Now Team Flash dopes out that a meta isn’t using the fire to kill people, the fire is going after grieving people to feed on them. Maybe that’s overly complicated, but it’s a workable theory.
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In the secondary plot, Deon picks up some anomalies with Iris. While she should be telling Barry about her time lapses, at least Iris is getting some help from someone qualified.
Sue Dearborn returns to town. It’s so weird how the show just acts like Ralph never existed. They really just needed to recast a core member of Team Flash. Sue’s got news of a new meta, the Coast City Phantom and Iris decides to roll to avoid having to tell Barry what’s going on?
They track the phantom down and get her name — Tinya (Mika Abdalla). Is The Flash teasing the Legion of Super Heroes? Most likely not, but this was an interesting choice of characters for this episode.
Coincidentally, the subtitle of this season of Young Justice is also titled Phantoms and it also has a cameo by Phantom Girl and two members of the Legion.
Tinya is searching for her birth mother and hoping that her new phasing powers would convince her mom that she is special. That’s an interesting way to introduce yet another possible new recruit to Team Flash, which could literally be called the Legion since it has more members than the three/four we saw in Supergirl.
In the “post credit” scene, Deon is back with some bad news for Iris. Oh no, did The CW enact a mention of “leveling up” ban for the rest of the season? Today’s mention was at 13:14 for those of you keeping track.
Phantoms was another solid episode for The Flash. Twin wackiness was absent and there was no forced superhero mentoring. Maybe that’s the secret to making this season work?
Rating: 7 out of 10
Photo Credit: The CW
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