The Flash S05 EP07 Spoiler Review
(Notice who is missing from this scene? It starts with 'R' and ends with 'alph')
Team Flash came back this week with their belated Thanksgiving episode with what I believe is their best episode this season as well as their most disappointing, but I'll get into that. The episode gave us a lot of valuable new information while pushing the story like this season has been great at doing, so there is a lot to unpack, and a lot to anticipate going into next episode!
The main focus of the episode was the arrival of the Weather Witch, the daughter of season 1's Weather Wizard who is armed with weather controlling meta tech with a desire to see her dad dead. I was so excited to finally have Weather Wizard back on the show since he's been absent since season 2, but then he barely appears and doesn't do a thing for the whole episode. We see him in prison, Barry has a short conversation in the pipeline, and then we get a fake hologram of him later on, and that is it. Hopefully we get more of him in another episode, because this episode was a complete waste for the return of such an important villain. Weather Witch herself was cool enough, and conjured up a wicked lightning tornado, but pales in comparison to her father. Their story was meant to exemplify a dysfunctional relationship between a father and daughter that carried over into the secondary plot of the episode.
Nora was angry at Barry for constantly running into danger and possibly getting himself killed, which in turn would leave her alone and cause her to lose him all over again. It was a plight that made sense, but thankfully Nora came around at the end when she realized that Barry is risking himself to save people, and that he does think of his family every time he puts himself in danger. It was a touching story for the two of them that brought them even closer together. We also got the mention of a few past moments where Barry risked his life, which Nora didn't have knowledge of such as Barry giving himself to the speed Force, or how Ronnie died closing the black hole. It seemed like set up for next week's episode, and call backs to show the long memory of the show's writers is always fun.
The third storyline running parallel to all this was constant flashbacks to flesh out Cicada's backstory. It reminded me of the episode, "Therefore I am" from season 4 in which we got backstories explaining Devoe's backstory. This episode we learned about Orlin Dwyer, and how he adopted his young niece after her mother, his sister, was killed in a meta attack. He was shown to be sort of a dead beat, living a sedentary life, and providing an awful home for his niece who eventually declared that she hated him. This prompted him to change his ways, find them a new home, and start their relationship anew which finally developed into a true and touching parent and child connection. Then we were shown Orlin's perspective of Devoe's Enlightenment from the end of last season as well as the crashing of the satellite that put his niece, Grace, in a coma and sent a shard of metal through his chest. I love the fact that he carried her on foot all the way to the hospital with the metal piercing his lung, I think that is great and in general all of the flashbacks helped to deeply infuse him with characterization and show his more human side. His drive to be with his daughter on Thanksgiving worked against him though, as Sherloque monitored the security cameras of Grace's room and discovered that Orlin visits her every day (Awwww) which pointed Team Flash to the conclusion that Orlin Dwyer is Cicada.
The last thing I'll mention is that Ralph was conspicuously absent from this absent, despite it being Thanksgiving and all of them spending time with one another as they are all each others' families. He didn't even get a mention like Joe and Cecil, so where was he?
Despite my extreme disappointment as the lack of Weather Wizard, the plot with Nora and Barry, and then the Cicada backstories really propelled this episode high for me, and shunted Cicada's character immediately to one of the most likable villains the show has done. With a daughter who relies and cares for him, it makes me wonder how the show will handle his defeat, less they kill/lock him up and make her an orphan. Next week's episode teases another showdown with Cicada, and then a trip through the past to visit some old faces! I can't wait!
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