Jessie Robertson reviews the nineteenth episode of The Flash season 5…
After last week’s power punch of an episode, focused on Nora’s lie being exposed and Barry’s fairly harsh reaction to it, this week, we get a mish-mash of multiple storylines going on at once, making “Snow Pack” a clunky mess. There’s a lot of energy to making the stakes high and infusing emotions at every turn but the tone is way off; it has the dire mood of a finale and nothing here, save Iris and Barry’s emotional brawl that comes in hard as the cold open, everything is lacking.
That argument between Iris and Barry felt so true and I could see myself in both of their positions just thinking about my own life. That scene was played to perfection, of course, with much different results. When we flash to Nora stuck in 2049, still going to Thawne for advice, we get the term “Negative speed force”. I’m going to sound like a bad historian, but as far as I know, this is a concept introduced in comics when DC issued it’s “Rebirth” line, and I don’t think we’ve heard it yet in the Arrowverse, but could be wrong. Here, I’m not sure I like how it was used; time will tell but erasing all the love and joy and youthful wonder out of Nora is a definite zap of emotion.
I guess we should deal with the title of the episode: even in the midst of this huge family crisis, we get a villain of the week, albeit one we’ve seen before. Icicle, aka Caitlin’s dad is back and he wants to use this cryo device to create his perfect ice villain family, of course, with some modifications to Caitlin and making a new meta out of his ex wife. Caitlin’s family is a storyline that was introduced late, just last season I believe and it felt like kind of a copout when Caitlin was finally given more to do after multiple seasons of just being the “explaining science” character. But, after a promising beginning and interesting origin, her dad just feels completely one note and despite their epic looking battle scene (except for the close ups) giving him a hero’s death at the end only feels like it serves Caitlin’s character more than leaving us with the lasting impression of what a good guy he was; again, completely forgettable. And don’t think her mother’s cold nature is lost on any one but the fact that she’s now a meta as well, ice version no doubt, is a storyline I’d rather not revisit after the tepid affair here. And Cicada 2’s appearances here made me totally remember, first, she existed, and two, how awful of a big bad this character is.
Rating – 5.5/10: One good scene to kick us off hot tonight is quickly cooled off with boring Snow family drama
Jessie Robertson
