The Flash season 8, episode 13 review: Death Falls

“Just get some rest. I’ll be here when you wake up.” Spoilers for The Flash season 8, episode 13 follow.

As Caitlin begins to transform into Deathstorm’s bride, Team Flash must do all that they can do save her.

While they do so though, Deathstorm’s grief phantoms begin to haunt Team Flash once again.

Here’s everything that happened in The Flash season 8, episode 13 “Death Falls”.

Entropy in The Flash season 8

Well, once again Deathstorm begins to torture all of Team Flash like he has consistently been doing for the past several episodes. However, repeating the grief phantoms thread here just feels lazy. All that it’s doing is retreading the previous episodes and it does absolutely nothing new with the phantoms or for these characters. That is, except for Barry. With Barry’s phantom, his mother, it actually forces him to confront everyone he’s lost all at once which, when you think about it, is arguably the most brutal thing someone or something can do. Barry has lost so much and, while not focused on as much as it should’ve been in this episode, the times that it is are pretty solid.

But seriously, if Deathstorm is supposed to be some sort of pure elemental that existed before basically the dawn of all life, which we know because he mentions that he existed before Maltus, the homeworld of the Guardians of the Universe, the oldest living beings in the DC universe, there’s simply no way that Team Flash should be able to stop him. At all. And there’s no logical reason that this being needed their help to exist within this universe as more than a cloud. None of this version of Deathstorm makes sense.

And then, if he’s this powerful, why can’t he just immediately transform Caitlin? He gives an artificial ticking time clock of “she needs to be infested with more grief” because he knows he’s on a television show and is trying to give the show dramatic tension? Again, it makes no sense given how powerful and ancient the entity that Deathstorm is supposed to be.

Also, the idea that Frost isn’t actually a living being has been refuted time and time again, so while it makes sense for Deathstorm to taunt her with that, it makes no sense to increase tension by acting like she’s not just to make the process of turning her into an anti-Deathstorm fail. Also, grief should not matter at all when it comes to grafting these powers onto Frost. That’s a Deathstorm thing. In fact, the opposite should be true. Love should have been the activating component if they were going to use a feeling. It just feels like the writers room didn’t think this through and didn’t care whether things actually made sense for the plot or characters involved.

Oh, and then, despite being an anti-Deathstorm and handily beating him in a fight with zero tension whatsoever, Frost just collapses and dies despite being fine for at least a couple of minutes after absorbing him. Again, it just feels lazy. If Deathstorm is so much more powerful than she is that absorbing his power puts her into cardiac arrest, there is no way that she should’ve beat him in the first place. They just needed a character to die and it didn’t matter if, logically, it made any sense, just like the rest of the episode. What is supposed to be incredibly emotional (and it still is somewhat because we care about Frost) is so much less than it should have been because of the hackneyed way she died.

Thawne returns

The best part of this episode is the return of Thawne though. But not that Thawne. Eddie is back, thanks to Deathstorm. At the end of the previous episode, it was unclear whether it was the Time Sickness or Deathstorm or both, but it was quickly revealed that he was, in fact, a grief phantom manifested by Deathstorm. Either way, it’s great to see Rick Cosnett back in any form, regardless of how uninteresting the plot is.

This is also the first time that the show has ever acknowledged the seeming nothingness of Eddie’s sacrifice at the end of season 1. We, as the audience know that this isn’t true, but it’s still an interesting thought to have finally been brought up. Yes, Eobard Thawne may have come back, but Eddie’s sacrifice was one of the things that showed Barry what it meant to be a hero. It’s too bad that the episode didn’t actually do anything with that sentiment.

In what was supposed to be an emotional and thrilling end to this arc, The Flash season 8 falters heavily with so much nonsensical writing.

The Flashseason 8 airs new episodes on The CW each Wednesday at 8:00 p.m. ET.

What did you think of The Flash season 8, episode 13? Let us know in the comments below!