The Flash season 8, episode 1 review: Armageddon, Part 1

“You’re Ray Palmer, if something doesn’t exist, invent it.” Spoilers for The Flash season 8, episode 1 follow.

Ray Palmer makes his way to Central City and joins up to help Team Flash confront the Royal Flush Gang.

This is just the beginning though on where Armageddon is heading.

Here’s everything that went down in The Flash season 8’s premiere, “Armageddon, Part 1”.

The Atom returns in The Flash season 8

Just from the first couple of scenes of the season 8 premiere, it’s clear that it’s already in another league to season 7. On basically every level, the seventh season was terrible, so to have a couple of really fun scenes and a great Flash scene to start things off really set the tone well for the episode and hopefully the season as a whole.

It very much helps that Ray Palmer makes his first Arrowverse appearance since leaving DC’s Legends of Tomorrow in this episode. Brandon Routh has always been a bright spot in whatever Arrowverse show he’s been in and that’s no different here. He’s absolutely wonderful and no matter the tone of the scene that he’s featured in, he feels so incredibly sincere in the best ways. He’s not in “Armageddon, Part 1” as much as you might think, but he’s great whenever he’s on-screen.

The Atom and Flash also get to share a nice fight against Despero, who looks way better than expected to be fully honest. It’s short, which is a bit disappointing, but it makes use of both characters well, making it feel like they were both necessary in the fight.

Royal Flush

Other than Despero though, we get to see a different Royal Flush gang than the one that first appeared in Arrow. This is such a fun reintroduction to the group after first being referenced in season 1. They definitely feel like a villain of the week, but that’s okay after the previous season.

The team itself is pretty fun as we get to see a relatively comic accurate version of the team, as they are metahumans, and, to put it simply, they’re just thieves. It’s such a simple introduction to this season and it’s just nice. Their thefts also lead to a really great Flash-time scene that feels reminiscent of season 1 of the show, which is a great compliment.

The Citizen

As for Iris and Allegra though, we get to see how the Central City Citizen has grown since the end of last season. It’s not really explained how it grew so quickly, but to be honest, it doesn’t really matter. What matters is that this episode actually does some really solid character work with these characters that work well within this new world of the Citizen. Hopefully it just won’t be ignored over the next couple of episodes though.

Obviously, the Citizen portions of the episode are the least interesting as Ray typically would steal the show and you just kind of want to get back to him and Barry. However, unlike last season, even the least interesting part of this episode still provides for an entertaining watch.

The Flash begins its new season on an incredibly solid note, hopefully steadying the ship after the dismal previous season.

The Flash season 8 airs on The CW on Tuesday nights at 8:00 p.m. ET.

What did you think of The Flash season 8, episode 1? Are you excited for the “Armageddon” five episode event? Let us know in the comments below!