That wasn't technically terrible, but by the end it was just random crap happening for no rhyme or reason. There was no science or logic to anything seen onscreen.

I don't think the writers have made any final decisions about Frost yet which is both ominous and possibly hopeful.

Am I going to be the first one to say it? Is it just me or just Tom Cavanaugh look utterly doofy in the suit? When we actually have clear shots of his wearing it, and not just shadowy flashes, he looks silly rather than fearsome. Which is a huge weakness for both the actor and the character.

I admit it was nice seeing Damian Darhk again, and I'm glad the girl whose mother vanished was not forgotten, and they were reunited. But the finale still felt like a mess. **1/2.

I'm going to ignore the last five minutes for now. Because my review before then was solid in my head and I don't want to deviate from it too much. Let's pretend for now that five minutes occurred at the beginning of next week rather than at the end of this week.

My opinion before the last five minutes is that the episode was above average. And that fact made me resent the hell out of it. Not because I wish more episodes were like it. It's just that the storytelling turns were so shaky and shady that's it's appalling that this show can give us something like that and pass it off as respectable. I will concede the revelation than the Forces were the negative versions was decent. Every other bit of science (particularly regarding Cecile's new power-stealing ability) was pure nonsense. None of it made a lick of sense, and was random crap happening because the writers wanted it to happen, not because it should have, or even that it made sense. I admit that there is a certain appeal to nonsense storytelling without a real-world logic to it. But the show has to have cred elsewhere to get away with it. Twin Peaks is a good example. It routinely trafficked in pure nonsense, but that nonsense made sense in that particular world, and the stories and characters of the show were so strong otherwise, I was willing to not go overboard in picking either threads or nits at its logic. For the most part, it holds together as a world unto itself for that reason.

The Flash, the show, is just an utter mess with no rhyme or reason attached to the stupid random things occurring.

So we've delivered the proper shade for the episode when it looked to be a poor substitute for acceptable. After that ending? The episode is awful. I KNEW the show would utterly botch DC's Legends Of Tomorrow's perfect version of reformed Thawne, and they did it in only two damn episodes, which is like the absolute final middle finger to that underrated and unjustly canceled show.

Iris's death is stupid for the same reason Frost's was. They are obviously going to buy it back, and it's annoying whenever television does that. It remains to be seen if the show is dumb enough to make the characters grieve her next week (the show was dumb enough to have them grieve Frost the week after she fake-died) but it's a waste of time, false drama, and the show manipulating me and screwing me around. I hate that. The Flash is basically the Forrest Gump of Superhero shows. That is not a compliment to compare it to an Oscar winning film. It is an accurate comparison to the worst film to ever win an Oscar.

I'll give Forrest Gump this over The Flash. It may have been manipulative, unfair drivel, but it was EFFECTIVE manipulative, unfair drivel. I actually cried, which made me hate myself and the film even more than I would have if it hadn't given me that reaction. None of the Flash's tragic moments EVER land, and not just because the show sucks at great drama (and it does). It's because the show is so fundamentally dishonest about character deaths I don't ever believe what the show is showing me. Ever. That is the biggest failing a TV show can EVER give a viewer. It's the biggest failing any piece of fiction could give an audience member or reader: Breaking their trust so often and so much you can't ever accept what the project is showing you. If a show does that, it is a failure on every level you can think of. The Flash IS that complete failure.

I'm disgusted by an episode that appeared annoyingly average and turned out to be such a reprehensible fraud. Berlanti should hang his head in shame, DC should fire him, and Superman and Lois's showrunners should be put in charge of The Arrowverse from this point forward. I am beyond fed up with this crappy show. 0.

I guess I liked it? Question mark? I don't know. I don't trust the show enough to have actually enjoyed it but what we saw was interesting.

Frankly, I'm not down with reformed Matt Lescher Thawne being resurrected. Because while Legends Of Tomorrow had the capabilities to handle that character correctly, I don't think this show does.

Deon's out of nowhere heel turn is still frustrating.

Equally so is what's going on with John Diggle. He's basically had a two-season arc to figure out he doesn't WANT to be a hero? I actually agree with his decision. But did they need this many crossovers for him to come to so simple a conclusion? Is this set-up for Justice U? How? How could John refusing to be a superhero tie into that?

Cecile's stuff made me groan. Everything they do with that character winds up making me cringe. I don't like her place of prominence on the show, and I don't like a single thing they've done with her powers. Giving her powers at all was one of the series' biggest mistakes, and changing them randomly isn't going to fix that.

My biggest objection to the episode is how stupid Barry Allen is. How stupidly he reacts to amnesiac Thawne. I was like, "This is appropriate for an action cartoon in the 1980's." For an modern genre show that tries to take itself seriously? It's ridiculous how badly Barry wrecked that. Did I mention this is season 8 and he's still this dumb?

Let's say Barry doesn't believe Thawne has amnesia and is shamming and up to know good. It is in Barry's best interest, as well as the interest of the truth, for him to openly accept that at face value. Barry confronting and antagonizing him instead is so stupid because if Thawne IS telling the truth, he's literally volunteering dangerous information to the guy an amnesiac version of him should NEVER get. Who is to say that Barry's carelessness regarding Thawne's treatment here isn't the actual thing to jumpstart Reverse Flash's entire turn to the Darkside in this specific timeline? What I hate the most about the fact that Flash doesn't bother humoring him to gather information, and not showing him all his cards like the chump he is, is that it happens that way not just because the writers aren't talented enough to make that decision. Well, they aren't. But I truly believe on some level if they DID come up with it, they nix it because they'd believe the audience is so stupid they wouldn't be able to follow along with it as it was happening, even if it was explained in hindsight. It's not just that the writers are dumb that I object to. They think I'M dumb. They think this is all I can handle. That's the truly insulting thing about Flash bumbling into Amnesiac Thawne's life and giving the store away unasked about why he's so dangerous. It's done under the understanding that I'm too stupid to accept Barry Allen acting any other way. That unpleasantly reminds me of the awful 1990 Flash show, which went out of its way to dumb down Barry's every reaction in any given obvious scenario. As far as Berlanti is concerned, audience's tastes and sophistication has not changed from that shady era of genre. And it pisses me off this show thinks that about me.

Can you imagine if in Arrow: Season 2, upon Slade Wilson's unexpected appearance in Queen Manor, if instead of the cat and mouse rules Oliver tacitly agrees to play by, he started screaming at him and accusing him of all sorts of malfeasance in front of his confused family? It would have been a bloodbath, and Moira and Thea instantly killed. I don't like that Barry Allen not only is never as smart as Oliver, but the show doesn't ever hand him negative consequences because he isn't.

I liked it? Sort of? Question mark? Interesting concepts? Ish? Why am I still annoyed? ***1/2.

It was all right, all right, all right, but by the end I was fed up. Not by one specific thing. Just as a whole. It was too melodramatic, and the ending was too pat. And I frankly detest fiction that has a woman call another woman the b-word as form of empowerment. Allegra's coworkers are all right, but the episode bugged me.

The sad thing to realize is how stupid and pathetic Thawne's psychology is. Only in the past couple of seasons have we gotten the context of exactly how thoroughly dumb and inane his motivations truly are. Thawne as played by Matt Lescher on DC's Legends Of Tomorrow (who actually got a cool redemption arc) is awesome. Thawne as played by Tom Cavanaugh is a total loser. And he's SO easy to manipulate a dummy like Barry Allen (or a Caveman) can do it. I'm ashamed it took Barry this long to utterly defeat somebody this already broken.

The scene at the end was a rare instance of the show doing the dazzling visual effects Season 1 was famous for, and that the series can obviously no longer afford on a regular basis. That's probably also why both King Shark and Gorilla Grodd have been MIA for a few seasons. The budget has been drastically cut. But I liked that moment anyways.

The "Big Reveal" of the scientist at the end fell utterly flat for the stupidest of reasons: Nobody in the audience has seen that character before and nobody recognized her! As far as I can remember she's never been mentioned on the show before either, and she's suddenly one of Barry Allen's "inspirations". Derp. You do a Lower The Hood moment, the person under the hood needs to take the audience by surprise. We can't just say "Who?" and have the producers consider the moment successful.

I could maybe say I've outgrown this show. Or maybe it's genuinely much worse than it used to be. Either way, an average episode (of which this qualified) winds up annoying instead of entertaining me. **1/2.

I think the thing I resent most about the show is that Season 8 Barry Allen is almost as stupid as Season 1 Barry Allen. He makes the exact same kinds of dumbass mistakes and never grows and changes. It's weird they are giving that lesson to Joe here. Barry himself is far more resistant to character growth.

This was the exact problem with Kara Danvers on Supergirl, by the way. Barry is not as stupid as Kara was in Season 6. But it's the same damn problem.

I like that Joe doesn't like the roleplaying game. I'm glad Jesse L Martin was game for the costume at the end, because I actually found it a bit embarrassing.

I mentioned in previous weeks I didn't care about seeing Eddie Thawne again. Singh however is a character I've always liked, and it was good to see him again. I like that he was the one who gave Joe the actual clarity this week.

This show is getting to be a chore to watch. It makes mistakes a show that has been on the air for 8 years simply shouldn't make. I'm getting frustrated. **1/2.

I thought the premise was interesting, and I wish I could say the episode was great and give it a higher grade.

But I didn't like Deon's out of nowhere heel-turn.

And I especially didn't like Allegra encouraging Chester posting that dangerous stuff on his site. Yeah, the guy who used it had good intentions. But what if he hadn't? Chester freaking out over that is the right lesson, and Allegra telling him he's right to be that careless in general sucks ass.

Also, I don't ever want to hear an actor with Allegra's pale skin tone ever tell a black man like Chester he's "one of the good ones". Literally one of the most tone-deaf things they could have a character say. About as bad as when Ryan Choi called Chester "my boy" in "Armageddon".

What bothers me is that we're back to square one at the end. Barry didn't rescue Iris, and I'm especially frustrated he didn't rescue that girl's mom. I think her rage over Barry coming to her for help is justified. But maybe Barry and Iris can be forgiven if they save her mom. I don't like that being dropped.

The Frost resurrection stuff bothers me, mostly because I know exactly how it's gonna go down. They are going to resurrect her, but she'll be evil, and she'll be the Big Bad of Year 9 that Team Flash will be trying desperately to redeem in the final season. The thing I hate most about The Flash is that it's television. There's nothing more television than that idea. And I am sure I am right.

It was mildly diverting as far as premises go, but the execution left a bit to be desired. ***1/2.

Are we seriously doing this? For real? I'm not. I'm not reviewing this episode. I'm not going to act like the characters and viewer being asked to grieve a fake-out death is remotely acceptable storytelling. It's a lie, a waste of time and energy, and the show is asking me to put more emotional investment in it than I could ever get out of it.

Not doing it this week. I'll review next week if the writers decide to be honest with their story for once. I don't reward liars with long reviews (even bad reviews). They don't deserve my time. 0.

Here's something you may not know: If a good episode of a given show is spinning along for 35 minutes or so, if the last five or ten minutes are bad, it turns it into an actual bad episode. I thought the scares were suitable creepy until then, and I liked the debate Deathstorm raised about Frost being a real person. But that ending means this show is just as crappy as it always was.

And this is the exact problem with the rest of The Arrowverse too (save Superman & Lois, so far, knock on wood). Frost isn't dead. Nobody will believe that. Even if Danielle Panabaker were leaving the show, and they gave Frost a big self-sacrificing death to memorably send the character off here, that's not what happened in this episode. What happened was this show committed one of the absolute worst sins a television show can commit: It made its characters grieve a death that didn't really happen. Forget the annoyance of putting the viewer supposedly through an emotional wringer just to walk it back in a few weeks. Or doing the same thing to the characters. What every show that does a fake death or a fake-out dream sequence is telling the viewer is that it cannot be trusted. "I have lied and will lie about some hugely important and powerful things in the past and currently, and have no plans to stop lying to you." Do you as a viewer see this flaw in this type of writing? What happens when you abuse a viewer's trust over and over again? If and when the show DOES decide to kill off a character for real, the audience will not automatically accept it at face value. It won't land properly or hit them hard when it should. They will look for loopholes instead, and ways out of the scenario. That is dramatic poison, and this is not something I should need to point out. Anyone with even a cursory familiarity with writing should already know it too.

Can I tell you who I blame for this? You. Every single comic book fan reading this review is at fault. Because the entire genre has built itself an industry around the idea that death is impermanent and doesn't matter, and you've rewarded them with book sales. Instead of calling b.s. on this type of storytelling, comic book fans hang on the edge of every word of known and proven liars. Why? Why have you told creators through their pocketbooks that this low-down dirtiest method of storytelling is acceptable? Look what you have done. If every single one of you got as angry about this crap as you should get, it wouldn't happen.

Soap opera fans similarly have a high tolerance for b.s. storytelling, but the difference there is the women watching those shows know they are b.s. for it. It's a morbid joke among soap opera fans that their genre is ridiculous. And yet comic book fans instead demand mainstream critics and audiences to treat their nonsense seriously. They deserve Oscar and Emmy consideration, and are pissed when they are justifiably ignored instead. Geoff Johns wears that stupid hat while telling us in interviews that comic books are the modern Shakespeare, and creation myth allegories. While the books buy back several deaths a year. Geoff, do you truly think Shakespeare ever said, "Just messing with y'all!"? Was there ever a massive four-part play called "Reign Of The Hamlets"? Then shut up, man. You're embarrassing yourself.

I have pissed off a lot of comic book fans with my reviews, and I expect this one will be no different. Here is a suggestion for you: Get more pissed off. At the comics and superhero franchises themselves. Believe it or not, you DO deserve better. Maybe I'm taking shots at your sacred cows simply because they aren't sacred, and should never be confused for such. I have lost and will lose friends over this. But really, I rail against this crap every week, and no-one else does. What else am I supposed to think? *.

Eh.

I mentioned this the last time Rick Cosnett appeared, but when you see a former regular of a series after a long period of time following their departure, you are ALWAYS supposed to say, "It's good to see _____ again." Always. I can't do that for Cosnett because I never cared about either him or Eddie.

I'll tell you what's annoying. Everyone telling Caitlin this isn't her fault. Since that's not true, they aren't actually helping her by lying about that.

I thought the moment of Sue centering Iris through anger was pretty cool. Not a ton of cool things in the episode.

Whatever. The show may have done better before this, but it sure as hell has also done a lot worse. ***.