Because everyone got to know Frost on a personal level off-screen, that's why. Chester and Allegra barely knew Frost, Iris has been dealing with dozens of issues since Frost officially joined the team (first she was trapped in the mirrorverse, then she's got a subplot that's so disconnected that it's giving me China Ann McClain in Black Lightning season 4 flashbacks), and Cecile... Okay, I'll give you Cecile since she did help with Frost's legal troubles (even though Frost did end up going to prison anyway, but I digress).
Seriously, did anybody else think that this episode felt off because everyone suddenly knew Frost super well? I think Frost helped Allegra with a subplot in "Love is a Battlefield", but they never hung out and I recall them getting into an argument. I can't recall Chester and Frost sharing a single scene together when there wasn't other members of Team Flash around. Iris has been so distant from the team that she hasn't had enough time to get to know Frost. Cecile loves inserting herself into other people's business, so it's actually no wonder that her and Frost hung out off-screen. Go figure. Really the only people that should've had any meaningful reaction is Barry and Caitlin, and to the writers' credit they did, but everyone else's really took me out of the episode. For Chester, Allegra, Iris and Cecile, losing Frost would've been like losing a coworker. Someone you'd be sad about if they were gone, but you ultimately didn't know them that well. The only real difference here is that that coworker is also a respected superhero.
And do you wanna know the worst part? I don't think that this episode feeling awkward is the writers' fault. The show's been separating characters into pairs since Eric Wallace took over. Barry and Iris, Chester and Allegra, Frost and Ralph until Hartley Sawyer got omegacancelled, then they split Frost and Caitlin into separate bodies so they could partner them together. The show hasn't put enough focus on the relationships of the characters as a *team* to really earn the fact that they'd all mourn Frost's death in any meaningful way. When they're trying to tell the separate stories of everyone grieving they even do Chester and Allegra together because they have nothing to do outside of push along their "will they, won't they" subplot! Spoiler Alert: They will, so stop dragging it out please.
Then there's this weird episode opening with this guy called Blockbuster that's so hysterically ridiculous that you'd think it was satire! I'm serious, this is one of the most ludicrous scenes I've seen in a tv show all year!
Let me break this down:
Not six episodes ago in "The Fire Next Time" we saw Barry knock The Hotness off his feet and the fight was over in three seconds! Heck, there wasn't even a fight! So why doesn't Barry just do that here? Because if he did, the rest of the episode couldn't happen. Instead of putting the loser out of my misery, Barry instead chooses to stand there like a jack-- (I can't finish that insult because IMDb's been really draconian with my reviews in the past, holding them for several days because I put a single curse word in, so sorry for covering my bases) and talk with the rest of the team, which gives Blockbuster enough time to put civilians in harms way! This issue could've easily been solved with a simple fix: Have Barry try to speed punch the guy and fail, then have Chester say that the suit he's wearing increases his durability alongside his strength. "Well couldn't Barry just toss a bolt of Speed Force Lightning at him?" I hear you asking. Sorry, one brain tumor at a time here, folks.
Secondly, and you're gonna want to sit down for this one, WHY IS CECILE SUDDENLY A FIELD AGENT?? Allegra I'm willing to accept. She's been to prison, she controls the UV spectrum, she knows her way around a fight (though maybe not a metahuman fight, but like I said, one brain tumor at a time), and she's got Nash's smoke bombs to get out of there if she's in danger. But Cecile does NOTHING!! Cecile is a lawyer (and not the Matt Murdock kind where he was a ninja first and became a lawyer years down the line), she's five foot nothing, she's never been in a real fight (much less a metahuman fight), she's not even wearing Psycho Pirate's mask or sitting in the Thinker's highchair to boost her powers, AND SHE'S NOT WEARING A MASK!! If the news caught wind of this, I don't know if it's cause for disbarment but there's going to be some serious consequences! And what happens if she dies? Barry is *needlessly* putting a civilian in danger by bringing her into the field!
And that brings me to my next point. Chester would know not to say Frost's name. If we wanna make the claim that Chester knew Frost really well (even though I can't recall them sharing a scene just the two of them), he'd know not to call out Frost's name because she's dead! Especially because he can SEE THE FIGHT HAPPENING!! Or at least he'd need to to be able to call out commands like he's doing. As stupid as Cecile being in the field is, I'd argue that *this* was the dumbest part of this scene!
That covers the first five minutes of the episode-- Wait, five minutes?? They shoved that much stupidity into five minutes? Jesus H. Christ. Anyway, then we get to the actual good parts of the episode, and I'm going to choose to cover Barry first because he's the only one that had a reaction to Frost's death that felt right.
Barry spends the day crossing items off of Frost's bucket list. Things like white water rafting, having her art displayed at the Louvre, winning a hotdog eating contest. Honestly, this was where the episode really got to me. We didn't actually see Barry go white water rafting, but I immediately recognized the callback to season 6 (though I can't remember the episode that Barry and Frost made the agreement to do that together, sorry). Barry spends the day doing the things that Frost wanted to do, choosing to remember her as the fun-loving chaotic personality she became and not the monster that she started off as. It was really touching, albeit futile because doing all the things she wanted to do distracted him from doing the one thing he should've done first, and that was making sure Caitlin was okay. Frost loved her more than anything, and that's why Barry didn't feel like he'd really honored her until he'd made sure Caitlin was (seemingly) okay.
Iris's dilemma about how to honor Frost was actually pretty cool too. I appreciated that she wanted to write an article about how great Frost was, but she couldn't because then she'd expose herself as someone who knew Frost personally and either A. She'd be discredited for not taking an objective stance in her journalism, or B. She'd become a target because Frost worked with the Flash. Ultimately, Iris interviewing people about how Frost changed their lives was the right thing to do, and it felt pretty great to see (even though I would've liked to see Frost saving those people in previous episodes so we could get a real "callback" feel, though this works too since we get the sense that Frost did more heroics off-screen). Honestly, the only issue I have is that Frost clearly didn't tell the lawyer going against her in her case that she needed a change of careers. The two of them only ever interacted during the trial and never even had a conversation. So I suggest that we switch out the lawyer for Kramer in this scene, and have Kramer admit to and apologize for using the CCPD to go after Frost last season. Kramer was even in the episode, and for multiple scenes. We can squeeze in one more appearance on Iris's podcast from her to make that storyline seem like it did something.
I'm not even going to talk about Chester and Allegra's section though. Will they get together? Yes, and when they do, that means Allegra leaves if "Armageddon, Pt. 4" is to be believed. So I'd suggest they have that one night stand sooner rather than later. Even Deathstorm and Chillblaine are sick of this crap!
But you know what? At least the writers tried to make Frost's death ceremonious. That's more than I can say for Nash Wells in "All's Wells That Ends Wells".
Or at least, her death would feel ceremonious if Caitlin wasn't gonna try to resurrect her! Caitlin literally just tried to bring her husband back from the dead not three episodes ago in "Resurrection", and she ended up giving life to a demon trapped in a pocket dimension trying to end all life on earth. Caitlin, I'm sorry, but maybe you should stop trying to bring people back from the dead. Especially if it means that Chillblaine is sticking around! That guy has got to go!
So overall, this episode had a solid premise, but the problem lies in the execution. Half of the episode doesn't feel earned because the characters only spent time together off screen, and the episode's opening is one of the most laughably bad scenes in the show's history. So does the good of the episode outweigh the bad? Maybe.
If you're looking for an episode that really does its best to honor a dead character, go watch "Armageddon, Pt. 3" again because it does a better job of honoring Oliver Queen in one scene than this episode does to Frost in forty minutes. If you're looking for an episode that explores the characters through their different perspectives, I can't recommend checking out Superman and Lois's "Bizarros in a Bizarro World" enough. "Funeral for a Friend" tries to be a mixture of those two, but the episode's quality was "alright, but not as great as it could've been".
7 / 10
Also, I find it funny that we've gotten two episodes this season where a character says "It's great to see everyone remembering him/her this way." First in "The Fire Next Time" where Barry says it about his dad, and now here where Caitlin says it about Frost. Whoever wrote these episodes clearly wanted that line to be the new "Level Up!"
Seriously, did anybody else think that this episode felt off because everyone suddenly knew Frost super well? I think Frost helped Allegra with a subplot in "Love is a Battlefield", but they never hung out and I recall them getting into an argument. I can't recall Chester and Frost sharing a single scene together when there wasn't other members of Team Flash around. Iris has been so distant from the team that she hasn't had enough time to get to know Frost. Cecile loves inserting herself into other people's business, so it's actually no wonder that her and Frost hung out off-screen. Go figure. Really the only people that should've had any meaningful reaction is Barry and Caitlin, and to the writers' credit they did, but everyone else's really took me out of the episode. For Chester, Allegra, Iris and Cecile, losing Frost would've been like losing a coworker. Someone you'd be sad about if they were gone, but you ultimately didn't know them that well. The only real difference here is that that coworker is also a respected superhero.
And do you wanna know the worst part? I don't think that this episode feeling awkward is the writers' fault. The show's been separating characters into pairs since Eric Wallace took over. Barry and Iris, Chester and Allegra, Frost and Ralph until Hartley Sawyer got omegacancelled, then they split Frost and Caitlin into separate bodies so they could partner them together. The show hasn't put enough focus on the relationships of the characters as a *team* to really earn the fact that they'd all mourn Frost's death in any meaningful way. When they're trying to tell the separate stories of everyone grieving they even do Chester and Allegra together because they have nothing to do outside of push along their "will they, won't they" subplot! Spoiler Alert: They will, so stop dragging it out please.
Then there's this weird episode opening with this guy called Blockbuster that's so hysterically ridiculous that you'd think it was satire! I'm serious, this is one of the most ludicrous scenes I've seen in a tv show all year!
Let me break this down:
Not six episodes ago in "The Fire Next Time" we saw Barry knock The Hotness off his feet and the fight was over in three seconds! Heck, there wasn't even a fight! So why doesn't Barry just do that here? Because if he did, the rest of the episode couldn't happen. Instead of putting the loser out of my misery, Barry instead chooses to stand there like a jack-- (I can't finish that insult because IMDb's been really draconian with my reviews in the past, holding them for several days because I put a single curse word in, so sorry for covering my bases) and talk with the rest of the team, which gives Blockbuster enough time to put civilians in harms way! This issue could've easily been solved with a simple fix: Have Barry try to speed punch the guy and fail, then have Chester say that the suit he's wearing increases his durability alongside his strength. "Well couldn't Barry just toss a bolt of Speed Force Lightning at him?" I hear you asking. Sorry, one brain tumor at a time here, folks.
Secondly, and you're gonna want to sit down for this one, WHY IS CECILE SUDDENLY A FIELD AGENT?? Allegra I'm willing to accept. She's been to prison, she controls the UV spectrum, she knows her way around a fight (though maybe not a metahuman fight, but like I said, one brain tumor at a time), and she's got Nash's smoke bombs to get out of there if she's in danger. But Cecile does NOTHING!! Cecile is a lawyer (and not the Matt Murdock kind where he was a ninja first and became a lawyer years down the line), she's five foot nothing, she's never been in a real fight (much less a metahuman fight), she's not even wearing Psycho Pirate's mask or sitting in the Thinker's highchair to boost her powers, AND SHE'S NOT WEARING A MASK!! If the news caught wind of this, I don't know if it's cause for disbarment but there's going to be some serious consequences! And what happens if she dies? Barry is *needlessly* putting a civilian in danger by bringing her into the field!
And that brings me to my next point. Chester would know not to say Frost's name. If we wanna make the claim that Chester knew Frost really well (even though I can't recall them sharing a scene just the two of them), he'd know not to call out Frost's name because she's dead! Especially because he can SEE THE FIGHT HAPPENING!! Or at least he'd need to to be able to call out commands like he's doing. As stupid as Cecile being in the field is, I'd argue that *this* was the dumbest part of this scene!
That covers the first five minutes of the episode-- Wait, five minutes?? They shoved that much stupidity into five minutes? Jesus H. Christ. Anyway, then we get to the actual good parts of the episode, and I'm going to choose to cover Barry first because he's the only one that had a reaction to Frost's death that felt right.
Barry spends the day crossing items off of Frost's bucket list. Things like white water rafting, having her art displayed at the Louvre, winning a hotdog eating contest. Honestly, this was where the episode really got to me. We didn't actually see Barry go white water rafting, but I immediately recognized the callback to season 6 (though I can't remember the episode that Barry and Frost made the agreement to do that together, sorry). Barry spends the day doing the things that Frost wanted to do, choosing to remember her as the fun-loving chaotic personality she became and not the monster that she started off as. It was really touching, albeit futile because doing all the things she wanted to do distracted him from doing the one thing he should've done first, and that was making sure Caitlin was okay. Frost loved her more than anything, and that's why Barry didn't feel like he'd really honored her until he'd made sure Caitlin was (seemingly) okay.
Iris's dilemma about how to honor Frost was actually pretty cool too. I appreciated that she wanted to write an article about how great Frost was, but she couldn't because then she'd expose herself as someone who knew Frost personally and either A. She'd be discredited for not taking an objective stance in her journalism, or B. She'd become a target because Frost worked with the Flash. Ultimately, Iris interviewing people about how Frost changed their lives was the right thing to do, and it felt pretty great to see (even though I would've liked to see Frost saving those people in previous episodes so we could get a real "callback" feel, though this works too since we get the sense that Frost did more heroics off-screen). Honestly, the only issue I have is that Frost clearly didn't tell the lawyer going against her in her case that she needed a change of careers. The two of them only ever interacted during the trial and never even had a conversation. So I suggest that we switch out the lawyer for Kramer in this scene, and have Kramer admit to and apologize for using the CCPD to go after Frost last season. Kramer was even in the episode, and for multiple scenes. We can squeeze in one more appearance on Iris's podcast from her to make that storyline seem like it did something.
I'm not even going to talk about Chester and Allegra's section though. Will they get together? Yes, and when they do, that means Allegra leaves if "Armageddon, Pt. 4" is to be believed. So I'd suggest they have that one night stand sooner rather than later. Even Deathstorm and Chillblaine are sick of this crap!
But you know what? At least the writers tried to make Frost's death ceremonious. That's more than I can say for Nash Wells in "All's Wells That Ends Wells".
Or at least, her death would feel ceremonious if Caitlin wasn't gonna try to resurrect her! Caitlin literally just tried to bring her husband back from the dead not three episodes ago in "Resurrection", and she ended up giving life to a demon trapped in a pocket dimension trying to end all life on earth. Caitlin, I'm sorry, but maybe you should stop trying to bring people back from the dead. Especially if it means that Chillblaine is sticking around! That guy has got to go!
So overall, this episode had a solid premise, but the problem lies in the execution. Half of the episode doesn't feel earned because the characters only spent time together off screen, and the episode's opening is one of the most laughably bad scenes in the show's history. So does the good of the episode outweigh the bad? Maybe.
If you're looking for an episode that really does its best to honor a dead character, go watch "Armageddon, Pt. 3" again because it does a better job of honoring Oliver Queen in one scene than this episode does to Frost in forty minutes. If you're looking for an episode that explores the characters through their different perspectives, I can't recommend checking out Superman and Lois's "Bizarros in a Bizarro World" enough. "Funeral for a Friend" tries to be a mixture of those two, but the episode's quality was "alright, but not as great as it could've been".
7 / 10
Also, I find it funny that we've gotten two episodes this season where a character says "It's great to see everyone remembering him/her this way." First in "The Fire Next Time" where Barry says it about his dad, and now here where Caitlin says it about Frost. Whoever wrote these episodes clearly wanted that line to be the new "Level Up!"
