The Flash – Keep it Dark review S8 E17
In a season seemingly filled with Barry gets sidetracked this week with the reveal of a new speedster in town? Oh man, what a wild plot twist! How will The Flash react to another speedster showing up?
This could change so much for the series by having another person using super speed to do what Barry does. Could you imagine the possibility if this new speedster didn’t have any idea how to properly use their speed and Barry could be a mentor for them in the art of superspeed? Or maybe it’s an older speedster who can teach Barry about how to use different tricks?
If the show is introducing new speedsters, how crazy would it be for Barry and Iris to have children that also had superspeed? Then they could introduce a concept like time travel and have their adult children travel back in time to team up with Flash? This is really exciting!
No…wait, this is Season 8 of The Flash and all those ideas have already long since been exhausted and repeated ad nasuem.
Weird that Joe has a Batman-theme backpack for Jenna and not a Marvel or Star Wars character.
Barry’s going off the grid to investigate the new speedster. Barry visits Thawne on Lian Yu. He’s still mad Barry took his speed and “shockingly” won’t play Hannibal Lecter to Barry’s Clarice…for a moment. The new speedster can’t control their power. Did Barry really need to talk to Thawne to get the intel?
Allegra is running Central Citizen in Iris’ absence. Taylor wants to run a story on Team Flash’s new light-based ally. Allegra wants Taylor, Vanya (Lindy Booth) and Aariz (Shayan Bayat) to focus on the return of her old running crew, the Aranas Gang, now led by Dr. Light and Sunshine. Her old friend, Lydia, is being targeted by the Aranas, who come for Lydia.
It’s weird that Allegra is so focused on not letting the Citizen staff know about her past with the Aranas. It’s not like they’ve been developed to any extent to make us care. And it’s very weird that Allegra has interacted with them more than Iris, who again is absent for the episode.
The Flash always tries to casually throw out journalistic ethics as needed. It never works. Taylor drops the bombshell that Allegra used to be part of the Aranas, which naturally turs Aariz and Vanya against her.
This is forced drama that makes no sense. While Allegra’s bummed out, Chester and Lydia have to provide the weekly pep talk, which feels cliché now and overdone. Yes, Allegra is a fierce leader blah blah blah.
It doesn’t resonate here because the writers still aren’t sure what they want to do with Allegra. Is she a meta and Flash teammate or a reporter with powers that occasionally lends a superpowered hand?
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Allegra worked best when paired with Iris and Kamilla handling stories for the Citizen as a three-woman squad. As usual, the temptation to toss in another hero proved too great and they’ve squandered a promising character to make them “special” because they have powers.
While she’s sharing, Allegra decides to reveal her powers too. This is lazy storytelling. It’s a cop-out from the writers to avoid characters having to face consequences of a secret identity. Just once, a show needs to explore the dangers of a hero telling their identity to the wrong person. Maybe Taylor can be that character?
Lydia gets her interview where she outs Sunshine and Dr. Light. They’re bad guys, why should they care if anyone knows their identity? It’s not like Sunshine even wears a mask! And Dr. Light is just wearing some funky hi-tech sunglasses. This was framed as a big win for Allegra, but it was just silly.
Everything is all good now with the Citizen. Taylor is super apologetic and she’s chummy chummy with Allegra. Sigh. Way to waste a potentially good subplot. Taylor should be even more annoyed. Allegra lied about her criminal gang past and she’s been deliberately killing a story about Flash’s new partner, not for some righteous effort to maintain a hero’s secret but for her own self-interest.
This is why these subplots have lost all credibility. As soon as a problem gets established, it’s neatly addressed in 30-minutes typically with the reveal that X character has superpowers.
Caitlin says she can’t come back to STAR Labs yet and needs a break. Good. Caitlin had been this weird lingering element of the original Team Flash. With Wells and Cisco gone she wasn’t as essential a character especially after the writers burned her screen presence out with the double dose of Frost.
Post credit, The Flash tracks down the new speedster and wants to talk. Her speed isn’t natural. Meena Dhawan (Kausar Mohammed), the CEO of Fast Track Labs.
Meena was another character Joshua Williamson and Carmine Di Giandomenico created during their outstanding run on The Flash during the Rebirth era. Given how the show bastardized Williamson and Di Giandomenico’s Godspeed, I don’t have a lot of hopes for how Meena is treated, but I’ll be optimistic.
Again, Barry offers to mentor another speedster yet we really haven’t seen him help Kramer, a once antagonistic civilian character whose threat was ended when she got powers. The Flash’s track record hasn’t been good lately and this is another example of why it’s fallen so far from its peak.
Rating: 6 out of 10
Photo Credit: The CW
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