The Flash season 8 is missing one thing that made earlier seasons good. The Flash has been The CW’s flagship series for several years now and, after a mass cancellation spree by the network, is one of the last (and longest running) Arrowverse shows standing. While The Flash has longevity on its side, the same cannot be said for the superhero series’ dwindling creativity with storylines. Aside from that, the series has lost sight of one of the primary storytelling aspects and it has become all the more glaring an issue in season 8.
The Flash season 8 began in a unique way from previous seasons. It kicked off the season with a five-episode special event called “Armageddon,” which saw Barry Allen confronted by the alien villain Despero and nemesis Reverse-Flash in an interconnected storyline. The five-episode arc felt fresh and interesting. Since then, The Flash season 8 introduced Deathstorm, an entity created at the moment of Ronnie’s death and absorption into the singularity from the season 1 finale, and continued developing Iris' time sickness subplot.
The interlude episodes — which air between major arcs in showrunner Eric Wallace’s “Graphic Novel” sections of The Flash — certainly slow down the momentum of the narrative. But what the Arrowverse series has been without in quite some time is urgency. None of the story arcs, no matter how interesting, feel like they’re pushing forward at a good, swift pace. Iris was infected with time sickness in season 7 and yet there have been little answers as to why she got it. What’s more, Iris has disappeared entirely from the timeline, stuck somewhere in the Still Force, but Barry and the rest of Team Flash don’t seem like they’re in any hurry to get her out. Instead, they’re playing Dungeons & Dragons on a weekly basis while one of their own is trapped in another plane of existence. This isn't to say the show can't have such moments (it should), but it's glaring when that's what the team is doing instead of attending to more pressing matters.
The Deathstorm arc equally lacked any immediacy. What was formerly the Black Flame wreaked havoc on Central City for weeks before The Flash and his team were able to do anything substantial about it. Lately, it seems The Flash is playing more of a ive role in every storyline, no matter how urgent they might seem. Important elements of the plot are teased well in advance, but take a long time to build towards anything. By the time they do, the audience may have lost interest in learning about what’s going on because the pacing of the story is not building enough tension. That was not the case in previous seasons, where villainous threats from Zoom, Savitar, and even Bloodwork demanded time and immediate attention. What’s more, if a member of Team Flash was in danger, the Scarlet Speedster wouldn’t be playing a game. Rather, he would be searching for answers, actively trying to do something about it to rescue them.
Any threat to Central City’s safety was also treated with the same importance. S.T.A.R. Labs was a place where solutions were found and plans were formed; that no longer holds true most of the time. It’s almost as though the air has been taken out of The Flash’s sails. Storylines and plots that should have higher stakes are far more subdued than they would have been in earlier seasons. No one is really rushing to do anything, which leaves the overarching plot falling flat when it should be building towards something intense. Perhaps The Flash has finally lost the buzzing energy that drove it before and it’s unclear if it will ever get it back.