The Flash – Negative, Part Two review S8 E20

It’s taken me way too long to finish this season of The Flash. The main reason is because this season hasn’t been that good. It seemed like the season would be promising with the Armageddon opening act, but the season quickly devolved into one bad subplot after another.

You can always tell when a Flash season has gone downhill when the writers pull out the Reverse Flash/Thawne trump card. Again, this is a massive failing on the showrunners’ part in establishing other top tier villains like Thawne. Rather than attempting to build up other villains — a Captain Cold from another world maybe? — it’s just the reliable in case of emergency, break glass and bring back Thawne plan.

After killing Nora, only for that to immediately get wiped out, Thawne doesn’t have much left in the chamber in terms of evil acts that have an impact. Sure, he killed/took over Eobard’s body, but that only mattered to Meena.

Barry recognizes that Thawne is too major a threat at this point and unleashes a savage attack to kill him, but let’s up once Bart and Nora arrive and convince him otherwise. There’s comic book precedent for Barry killing Thawne though so that’s a valid solution in this case.

Bart and Nora explain if they’re still around then Thawne couldn’t have killed Iris. The writers truly backed themselves into a logically challenged corner with these various versions of Bart and Nora while these two are supposedly the direct lineage of the Arrowverse main Earth’s Barry and Iris. It doesn’t help that we’ve already seen a Nora die with zero consequence. Introducing another timeline Nora really negatively impacted suspense and the threat of important characters dying.

Convinced that his kids know best, Barry decides to go into the Negative Speed Force to find Iris. This snaps Meena out of her shock as she tries to help him break through to the other side. It’s not that helpful as the Negative Forces pose and preen as Barry arrives. Not that it really matters since it falls on the rest of Team Flash to get the job done anyway.

Cecile notices Barry is full of rage. She really needs to tone down on this mental eavesdropping. It’s rude, you know? Cecile recruits The Top and the Royal Flush Gang’s Queen to help her with her powers so she can find the Positive Forces. This leads to a meta seance, which would pretty much signify the season going off the rails. Maybe at the same train station everyone thought Joe died? This hokeyness works and Psych returns.

He provided Cecile the power boost since he knew the Positive Forces were about to get removed from this realm. Psych and the others can help provided Cecile puts on his mask to properly focus the power. It almost felt like a trap, but Psych was on the up and up.

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Since the episode wasn’t crowded enough, Jay Garrick and Joan arrive from the future. They’ve been tracking Iris through the time stream and track it down to the rock Damian Darhk gave Joe.

This checks as Iris encounters Damien Darhk in the stone. A remnant of him stayed there after the Armageddon incident. The stone senses Iris still has something important to do. Hopefully it’s not trying to make sense of this storyline… Iris gets to reignite the spark with Barry. This is all needlessly confusing as it feels like the writers are just throwing out gibberish quickly and hoping no one can keep up. In that sense mission accomplished.

The Negative Forces have boosted Thawne with their powers and he’s got a poorly fitted black suit — perfect for a nighttime fight scene. There’s no real rhyme or reason for his destruction this time and Team Flash can’t do much to stop him until the Positive Forces give Barry their power. That was disappointing as I was really pulling for lightning lightsabers again.

But Barry’s battle with Thawne is causing more harm than good and it’s up to the recently returned Iris to stop Barry. This would have been a great time to fully link back to Armageddon, but I suppose that was already resolved earlier?

For some reason, Thawne has rocket boots while Barry does his best Qui-Gon Jinn meditation. This was, to put it politely, a ridiculous and incoherent mess. Maybe the goal here is to make The Flash movie look better by comparison?

While I try and make sense of what exactly happened, the universe is apparently resetting itself…again. Does that mean Diggle has two sons again? I’m so confused. And somehow Cecile has new powers. For the last time, the entire subplot with Kramer gaining powers really went all of nowhere, didn’t it?

Flash and Iris found Tinya’s mom. Oh yeah that subplot… Who was staying up late at night wondering how that one was going to get resolved?

And speaking of subplots I’m beyond caring about, Chillbaine opens the chamber Caitlin went in. There was a malfunction, and we don’t see who’s actually in the chamber though it’s clearly Caitlin/Frost’s voice as she answers she’s a friend…she thinks. This storyline really needs to get put on ice. Sorry, channeling my Batman & Robin Mr. Freeze bag of bad puns.

Iris and Barry spend some long overdue cuddling time as they ponder who will be the Negative Speed Force’s new chosen avatar?  Red herrings aside I’m sure Thawne will somehow find his way back.

I miss when The Flash was The CW’s best series. That’s been awhile now and everyone on the series feels like they’re just going through the motions now. Maybe a renewal for a ninth and final season wasn’t necessary if this is the best the show has left to offer…

Rating: 4 out of 10

Photo Credit: The CW

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