Jessie Robertson reviews the twelfth episode of The Flash season 5…
It’s family therapy time… inside a little girls’ memories
The Good:
Tonight focused on my new favorite character in all of Arrowverse, Nora West Allen. Her deep dark secret, that she’s working with Thawne, becomes dangerously close to being revealed to her parents in tonight’s episode when we get a heavy sci-fi fantasy episode where they need to go into Grace’s memories to wake her up and see if it has any effect on Cicada. Once Nora realizes Barry may possibly be able to tap into her memories, she freaks and plugs herself in, hoping to get in and out to finish the job before that ever becomes a reality. The best laid plans though…..
Once Barry and Iris realize this they jump into Grace’s memories but are quickly shifted to Nora’s. How perfect a set up it is. And what great material we get from this. We get to see the Flash Museum for the first time, chock full of DC Collectibles, mugs, pins, and even a Flash bobblehead. We also see the Hall of Villains, highlighting some of our favorites of all time, like Zoom, Trickster, Amunet Black (Noticed I don’t mention Thinker?). We even get a quick look at Dr. Light, who has a long dark history in DC Comics, so that would be interesting to see him pop up. But, most importantly, we get to see Iris as a mother, in the future. Even more importantly, we get to see Iris see herself as a mother in the future. Her eyes really tell the story and a superb job by Candice Patton in that moment.
There’s some other good stuff I won’t go into too much detail but want to mention: Team Flash having fun ice skating! Yes, give us more of this. That’s what Team Flash does best. The Cisco-Ralph side story I thought would turn into another meaningless way to fill time, only to give us Cisco talking to a pretty lady. Great character stuff there. And both Caitlin and Sherloque had nice moments as well, as no one’s better at explaining science stuff and make it sound good; and Sherloque inching ever closer to Nora’s secret was also a good scene.
Not My Favorite:
“I’ve been listening….” I shuddered at this line from Grace as she’s in a coma, but can still hear everything being said. We see a dark matter blotch on her head revealed at the end of the episode and I hate the Thinker stuff even more as dark matter continues to plague episodes I like with stuff I don’t like. I was really pulled into the Nora’s memories stuff but couldn’t have been more turned off from Grace’s story. All we know is she pretty much hated life with her uncle, for a while, but she was coming around. So I don’t know if I’m way off but how did she form this “hate meta” opinion he has and how would that information be in her memories?? And it appears she’s dressed herself in a Cicada outfit, presumably being the Cicada in the future that is still murdering people. Even in Chris Klein’s one scene tonight he was bad. I find everything to do with Cicada to be an affront on good storytelling.
Rating – 7/10 – Nora’s storyline continues to pull me along but Cicada’s is dragging down what I thought was going to be a banner season for The Flash; we’re still early and there’s still time.
Jessie Robertson
