The Flash season 8, episode 8 review: The Fire Next Time
By Scott Brown
“Looks like we’re not the only ones who leveled up this year.” Spoilers for The Flash season 8, episode 8 follow.
When a fire-meta murders someone, the man that Flash believes committed the crime pleads that he’s innocent.
Instead of just writing him off though, Barry tries to believe him as much as he can and help him if he is innocent.
Here’s everything that went down in The Flash season 8, episode 8 “The Fire Next Time”.
Innocence
The fact that it’s taken eight seasons to get a story where Barry has to deal with someone pleading their innocence in front of their kid is honestly crazy. This is a story that feels like it would’ve been right at home within season 1 and, honestly, that’s very much a compliment to “The Fire Next Time”. The episode probably would’ve been a bit better if it was in season 1, but it really isn’t bad, just filled with a couple of missed opportunities.
Simply seeing Barry doing everything that he can to help Jaco Birch, a man desperate to not lose any more time with his son, it’s honestly nice; simply superheroics without being in the supersuit. Even after everything that the man does to make himself look more guilty (including escaping from CCPD custody), Barry still believes in his innocence, which is well deserved. And it turns out that Jaco got pulled into something more than just himself. He was simply being used by what seems to be a meta-human serial killer, who could be anyone at this point, which is an intriguing development for the season to head toward.
This also leads to another Barry and Joe conversation, which are always the best parts of the episodes that they are in. That continues to be the same here, as well, as the pair reminisce about Henry Allen and how Barry’s pain and loss gave him the perspective to see the potential innocence in everyone that he’s investigating.
Opposing perspectives in The Flash season 8
On the less serious (and less interesting) side of the episode, you have Allegra and Iris disagreeing about what article that they should pursue and well, like I said, it’s just not all that interesting. That’s not to say that it’s bad, but it just doesn’t really hook you into the story being told. Simply put, Iris wants to profile a social media influencer based in Central City, while Allegra wants to focus on smaller, regular people instead. It could’ve made for an interesting dynamic, but there’s just not really much to it in this episode.
Even when Allegra finds a former friend that she was in Iron Heights with, “The Fire Next Time” doesn’t really do anything with it. There’s no legwork into actually making us believe in the story that Allegra is writing. Sure, there’s the one conversation that the two share with one another, but that’s it. No follow-up. No reaction to the article. Nothing. Just the other reporter getting angry about the fact that she and Allegra didn’t work on the influencer story together like they were supposed to. It’s honestly, really disappointing because of that. The groundwork for making this interesting is there, but the legwork simply isn’t done to pull it off.
This week’s episode of The Flash season 8 isn’t bad, but it could’ve been a lot better than it ended up being.
The Flash season 8 airs new episodes on The CW on Wednesdays at 8:00 p.m. ET.
What did you think of The Flash season 8, episode 8? Let us know in the comments below!