The Flash S05 EP08 spoiler review (100th episode)
(Cicada may be this season's big bad, but he took a backseat to the past in this episode)
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I am so glad the show did not come up with some lazy, contrived reason for Flash and XS to travel back to various points of the past. The reasons they were going back to each moment made sense, and for me that was one of the most important parts of this episode. They knew that they could not directly take on Cicada without crippling his use of the dagger, and so they came up with the idea to dampen it; however, it was Nora who came up with the idea of how they would do that. Using the metal from Savitar's suit, the device Zoom used to siphon Barry's speed, and the original dark matter explosion they would create a device and hide it in the past to be used in the future. A pretty solid plan, otherwise the whole trip would feel forced.
Barry was initially wary about bringing his daughter back to the worst points in his life, but he softened to the idea after a talk from Iris and the duo sped off to the past. Ralph was back for this episode, and got to be the one who played the Back to the Future theme, even if he was scolded by the others for it. The time portal opened up, and their adventure began.
I felt real tenseness as they watched the season 3 finale battle with Savitar from afar, hiding in the woods waiting for the suit to be destroyed and become available to them. There was no timeline issues that occurred during this visit, as everything played out as it would with Barry and Nora only observing from afar. I loved the look of shock on Nora's face as she watched everything as the Flash museum has been established to only know what the public knew, and not things such as Savitar being Barry, and Iris killing him. Their visit became a bit sour as a time wraith appeared to track them, but Barry and Nora left it behind as they traveled back to season 2 with Zoom.
This was a cool one, as we actually got new scenes with Teddy Sears, Zoom's actor. It was the night that Zoom stole Barry's speed and escaped with Caitlin, which lead to Nora witnessing an awesome scene that I don't believe was in the original episode: Barry crying and losing hope after the event with Iris consoling him in the hallway, it was super sweet, and will make the original episode all the more poignant whenever I go back and watch it. While she saw this, Barry found Harry who was distraught over his missing daughter and almost destroyed the device they needed until Barry told him how to find his daughter, which is what really happened, but I wonder if telling him sooner will change much? Then Zoom returned just as Barry and Nora were about to leave, and the psychopath sensed Nora was a speedster and gave chase, a short chase that ended as Zoom hounded them through the time portal and subsequently got captured by the time wraith. I feel like this is majorly changing the timeline; however, I think Zoom in season 2 mentioned avoiding the time wraiths for a while, so it is likely he was able to escape a single one.
Their chase with Zoom left the device they needed broken, and the two popping out in a random time, a random time that turned out to be the first time Barry traveled into the past to seek help from Thawne. This lead to Barry and Nora going to Thawne as he awaited the season 2 version of Barry to wake up. It is always really fun to have Reverse-Flash back on the show, even out of the suit, and especially so when he's talking about future events. He shows recognition of who Cicada is, and him trying to guess Nora's identity was chock full of Easter eggs as he mentions Lady Liberty, Danica Williams: the Flash of Batman Beyond, and Dawn Allen! Thawne helped them with their plight after Barry threatened that Thawne wouldn't return home if he didn't help them, and Flash once again said goodbye for what certainly won't be the last time they meet.
A detail that I really enjoyed during each of their time jumps was that they would see scenes from each of the seasons that they were jumping from, it was a nice way to reference all of the events from the show. Then what I think is the perfect 100th episode event happened, they went back to the very first episode, were there for the event that started the whole series, and witnessed once again the particle accelerator's explosion.
As the two of them hid in the Time vault and waited for the explosion to take place, we got a really nice scene between Barry and Nora where she mentioned learning all these things about him that she didn't know, and reveals that she only knows of Reverse-Flash has his archenemy and nothing more. That was when Barry revealed to her that Thawne killed his mother, and told her that he wanted her to know none of this so she doesn't remember bad things about her father, to which Nora responded that she wanted to know her father and hugged him just as the explosion went off. We got a short montage of all of the major characters affected by the blast, from Ronnie, Professor Stein, the Mardon Brothers, Devoe, and ultimately Barry himself. I couldn't expect a more perfect celebrational event for the 100th episode to undertake, the show pulled it off great.
Team Flash in the present confronted Cicada at the hospital, and while their plan worked at first it quickly spiraled towards Cicada's upper hand until Killer Frost blasted him and sent him running. Because she did not come from dark energy, it appears she is immune to Cicada's power dampening powers, and added to that Barry can clue in the police and other law enforcement to Cicada's identity and make Orlin Dwyer a wanted man. Which will only probably make Cicada an even more dangerous villain.
Separately in the episode, Sherloque took Nora's diary that contained all the weird symbols and likened it to Barry's scrawling from the start of season 4. His confrontation with her only pulled from her the idea that it is a journal that will record events even with timeline changes that she invented along with the language, but Sherloque did not quite buy it and turned away after she left to look into the code he had been deciphering from it. What followed was Nora approaching Gideon to record her journal entry, and then declaring that she would visit in person the one she has been keeping correspondence with...and in the year 2049 she visits what appears to be Eobard Thawne in Iron Heights. What???
I have already mentioned how I think the Flash did a perfect job of making a 100th episode and celebrating the length of the show. Overall, they also produced a really fantastic episode that may last as the best of season 5, and no doubt be one of the best of the whole series. So many great moments and call backs, and there was almost more as the show runners have said they were held back by time restrains and scheduling conflicts otherwise we would have had more time with Zoom, and also the returns of Patty, Julian, and Eddie! There is also a ripe new mystery as we wonder what exactly is going on with Nora and this imprisoned version of Wells-Thawne in the future, and since next weeks episode is part of the massive crossover, we likely won't get any answers until after the break! It'll be a lot wait, but this episode has given me a lot to be happy about during the hiatus.
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