Plot
With Nora's relationship with the Reverse-Flash revealed, Team Flash is torn on whether or not Barry and Iris' future daughter can be trusted. As the team goes through her journal to learn just how she came to work with their greatest enemy, they learn the story of how Nora learned of her powers and how she faced her first villain - a vicious speedster who dubbed himself Godspeed.
Influences
The Flash comics of Joshua Williamson (character of Godspeed) and Cary Bates (Character of Detective Curtis) The film version of The Silence of the Lambs (Nora's first meeting with Thawne in prison is a tribute to the first appearance of Hannibal Lecter)
Goofs
Iris says that Sherloque didn't say anything about his suspicions about Nora. Yet Iris caught him spying on Nora in 511 and told him to stop after he said he thought she was up to something.
It seems a little weird that Team Flash shuns Sherloque for having the gall to spy on Nora behind her back and then goes along with Ralph's suggestion to read her whole journal without question.
No effort was put into Candice Patton's old age make-up beyond giving her some silver streaks in her hair.
The Reverse Flash display at The Flash Museum says he was sentenced to life in prison, yet the end of the episode reveals he just got his last meal and is about to be executed. (You'd think an event like that would be big news and that Nora would have heard about it. Then again, Iris apparently runs all the media in Central City now.)
Performances
Jessica Parker Kennedy has a fantatsic turn here, adding a whole never level of depth to Nora West-Allen.
Artistry
It's a small thing, but I do like that it is Ralph who suggests reading all of Nora's diary to figure out what she was feeling after Sherloque went through it just looking for facts. Too often Ralph has been treated as the comic relief and nothing but this season so it's gratifying that he gets to show his detective skills and his heart in one gesture.
The script is filled with a number of clever callbacks to the pilot episode of The Flash and other early moments from Barry's early days.
Danielle Panabaker does a fantastic job with the direction. It's hard to single out any one element, but the greatest may be the total disconnect between the loving Barry Allen we see leaving a message for the daughter he knows he may never see grow up and the hate in Barry's voice two minutes later as he is abandoning that same daughter in the future after telling her he doesn't trust her and can't have her around him.
Flash Facts
This episode was directed by Danielle Panabaker, who plays Caitlin Snow.
Godspeed first appeared in The Flash Rebirth #1 in August 2016.
In the comics, Godspeed was Detective August Heart - a colleague of Barry Allen's and his closest friend at the Central City Police Department. Five years after Barry became The Flash, August was struck by lightning and became one of several new speedsters to seek training under The Flash following a freak storm made up of Speed Force energy. August would later start killing the other newbie speedsters in a bid to steal their power and become faster. He had the unique ability to move so fast for brief periods that he could create a clone of Speed Force energy and briefly be in two places at once.
The Arrowverse version of Godspeed is named August Hart. He is identified by the CCPD as a bio-hacker, former Mercury Labs intern and former graduate student at CCU specializing in Tachyon Mechanics. He was expelled after he conducted illegal experiments testing tachyon stimulants on coma patients. He learned of existence of the super-speed drug Velocity-9 while working at Mercury Labs and began trying to find a way to replicate it make the effects of the drug permanent.
The first truck Nora is asked to inspect came from Dayton Labs. In the DC Comics Universe, Dayton Labs is one of many companies owned by Steve Dayton a.k.a. Mento, who was also the fifth-richest man in the world.
The detective at the Dayton Labs robbery is identified in the credits as Frankie Curtis, though her first name is never used. In Cary Bates' run on The Flash, Detective Frank Curtis was a friend of Barry Allen's on the CCPD. He first appeared in The Flash #274 in June 1979.
Nora's first attempt at assisting the police doesn't go well, and the two bank robbers she tries to stop, who are called Bug and Byte, escaping after Nora loses control of her powers. In the comics, Bug and Byte were a brother/sister super-villain duo, who first appeared in Fury of Firestorm # 23 (May 1984). Bug had the power to mentally connect to any computer system and transform people into electrical impulses he could then trap on the computer. Byte had the power to transform herself into a being of living energy and transmit herself through phone lines and power lines like a bolt of energy or data.
The Arrowverse version of Bug and Byte are a duo of bank robbers - one man and one woman. It is unknown if they are also brother and sister or if they have powers. Given their reaction to being confronted by armed police officers, it seems unlikely.
It is said that Nora's supervisor at the CCPD is named Captain Fyre. First appearing in The Flash #285 in May 1980, Darryl Fyre was the Chief of Police towards the end of the original run of The Flash comics.
Later, in the New 52 reality, Darryl Fyre would raise Barry Allen as his own son after Nora Allen's murder. Unbeknownst to Barry, Darryl Fyre and his mother had been having an affair and his father, Dr. Henry Allen, was served divorce papers just before she was killed by Eobard Thawne.
Nora and Lia attempt to stop Godspeed from robbing Stagg Industries. In the comics, this is the business owned and operated by continual Metamorpho nemesis Simon Stagg. The Arrowverse version of Simon Staff was killed by Eobard Thawne in the second episode of The Flash's first season.
One of the businesses Nora identifies in Central City is Choi Enterprises. This is likely a nod to Ryan Choi - the second man to become known as The Atom.
Technobabble
In the future, people will have AR glasses that project a screen in front of them.
The Dayton Labs trick is filled with Benzene Methanol residue. According to Nora it is a versatile element, used for everything from treating lice to making nanotech.
Halothane is an incapacitating agent.
The Affinity 4000 is a top-of-the-line security camera. When it is tampered with, its fail-safe releases Halothane. Lia says they also have a Trillion FPS and can capture light in motion.
According to Dr. Bonwit, the stolen chemicals would only be able to work together is being built into a structure like an extracellular matrix.
Godspeed stole a lot of Carbon Disulfide from Ollins Laboratories.
Nora was hit with over 5 billion joules of electricity. This is the same amount of energy contained in a lightning strike.
A 10-90 is the police 10 code for a bank heist in Central City. (In real life, 10-90 is the code for a bank alarm going off.)
Eobard Thawne's cell is equipped with enough power dampeners to negate the powers of 1000 metahumans. Should those fail, the walls, class, ceiling and floor of his cell are wired to generate a charge of 400 kilo-joules, making them phase-proof.
Nora says that Carbon Disulfide mixed with Benzene Methanol would be unstable and explosive without a third chemical to act as a binding agent with a plus-one oxidation state, like Dioxygen Diflouride. She later identifies this as the extracellular matrix for the Velocity-9 drug.
According to Thawne, a biometric converted requires constant fluorescent light. It is a kidney shaped object.
Thawne suggests that they can neutralize all the Velocity-9 in Godspeed's system by exposing him to the electro-magnetic radiation of a satellite dish, utilizing the short bursts of microwave energy that occur every hour when the dishes recalibrate.
Dialogue Triumphs
Dexter Myles: (over PA system) Thank you for visiting the Flash Museum today. The building will be closing in five minutes. All guests should make their way to the exit now. And Nora West-Allen, your mother called. Please, for your sake and mine, call her back.
Nora: Will you tell me how you were defeated?
Thawne: Why do you want to know that?
Nora: It'll help us with an investigation.
Thawne: You need to work on your lying. Nora. Your shoes are new. But your soles are worn. You have singe marks on your sleeves and singe marks on your pant legs, but most of all... your cheeks are flushed with windburn. (lovingly) Oh, I know that windburn. I can still feel it. (pauses) You're a speedster.
(Iris has just confessed that everyone in Nora's life knew that she was meant to have speed powers and that Iris used an implant to negate them.)
Nora: Why would you do that?!
Iris: Nora, I was trying to protect you.
Nora: From what?
Iris: From this city. From... from meta-humans. From... from yourself.
Nora: (laughing) Wow.
Iris: Nora, you don't understand -
Nora: (sobbing) No, I don't understand! How did I get my powers?! What do you have against speedsters?!
Iris: Nora, I have already lost so much. I can't risk losing you too.
Nora: (shrugging) Well, you just did.
(Nora runs out of the room... in a flash.)
(Nora is trying to outrun Godspeed)Nora: I can't lose him! Thawne! Did you hear me? I said I can't lose him!
Thawne: All right, Nora, do you see any walls near where you are? Preferably concrete?
Nora: Why?
Thawne: Because I want you to run into one. Or rather, through one.
Nora: I can't run through a concrete wall!
Thawne: Yes, you can. If you vibrate at the natural frequency of air, your body your cells will be in such a state that they will phase right through that wall.
Nora: I can't do this!
Thawne: Nora, listen to me. Listen to my voice. Breathe. Breathe. Feel the wind... on your face. The ground beneath your feet. And the lightning. Its electricity surging through your veins. To your nerve endings from the crown of your head to the tips of your toes like an electric shock you never want to end. You're part of something greater now, Nora. You are part of the Speed Force and its power, its power is yours to use. Now do it!
Nora: Here he comes!
Thawne: Then run, Nora. Run!
Nora: There's so much I wanted to ask you. So much that I still don't know. So much that my mom has lied to me about.
Thawne: You have no idea.
Nora: What do you know? Thawne, please, you may be the only person left in my life who won't lie to me!
Thawne: Nora... how much do you really know about The Flash?
Dialogue Disasters
(Godspeed runs in and looks at Lia and Nora)
Nora: Oh my god!
Godspeed: Yes. I am a god. A god of speed!
Continuity
Sherloque says he senses something was strange about Nora from the first moment he met her.
Cecile says she never sensed that Nora was hiding anything in all the time they spent together.
Cisco points out that Thawne was also a master liar and he may have taught Nora how to do the same thing.
Ralph suggests reading Nora's diary to see what she was thinking and feeling beyond the fact that she had apparently been working with Thawne.
Like Barry, Nora was always running late before she got her speed.
Nora works with a Detective Curtis.
Nora is called to investigate the robbery of a Daytons Lab truck that was delivering chemicals.
Nora says that two labs and two transports were robbed earlier in the past week, with nobody seeing anything.
Nora theorizes that someone picked the lock on the transport, disable the camera and stole a chemical from the Dayton Labs truck before the incapacitating agent could do its job.She does not voice her only explanation for this - a speedster - to Detective Curtis.
Nora's best friend and co-CSI is a woman named Lia. She shares Nora's love of superheroes (especially speedsters) and thinks she would have been Jesse Quick's best friend had she ever met her.
Lia says there hasn't been a speedster seen in Central City since The Flash disappeared during the crisis Iris wrote about in 2014.
Lia says that The Flash, Kid Flash, Jay Garrick and "the purple speedster who showed up one day" have all vanished. (This last one seems to be a reference to Iris during the events of 416.)
Nora become a CSI to follow in the footsteps of the father she never knew.
Much as Barry was obsessed with proving his father's innocence on murder charges, Nora is obsessed with solving the one case Barry Allen couldn't - the mystery of Cicada. She also has a case board in her office at CCPD.
Slowing down the security camera footage reveals streaks of white lightning inside the Dayton Labs truck.
Nora visits the Flash Museum to research speedster lightning.
The display of The Reverse Flash says that Eobard Thawne was finally captured and will spend the rest of his life in Iron Heights.
Nora confirms there is no record of a speedster who had white lightning.
Iris is in Coast City working on a story.
Lia gave a list of the stolen chemicals to a former teacher of hers, Dr. Bonwit, who now works at Ollins Laboratories. He says they might be part of a larger matrix, but he has no idea what might be made with only two chemicals.
Godspeed shows up as Lia and Nora are leaving.
Godspeed throws lightining at Nora, throwing her through a vat of chemicals and seemingly electrifying her.
When Nora wakes up, Lia is playing Lady Gaga's Pokerface. This is the same song Cisco played to get Barry to wake up when he lapsed into a coma.
Lia gets a minor burn from Godspeed's attack.
Dr. Bonwit is sent to the ICU after being attacked by Godspeed.
Nora says she feels good, apart from her fingers being a bit tingly, despite being struck by lightning.
Lia gives Nora a scrap of metal the paramedics found under a scar on her shoulder.
Nora first uses her powers trying to catch the vial with the metal scrap that Lia drops. Nora runs out of control and crashes into the back of a Gambi & Sons laundry van. This is a shout-out to when Barry first got his powers in 101, when he landed in the back of a Gambi's Cleaners van.
In another nod to 101,Nora is unable to stop her hand from vibrating and looks at it in shock. This is the same thing Barry did when his powers first manifested (She says "What the hell?" whereas Barry said "What's happening to me?")
Nora tells Lia her secret.
Nora has a Flash bobble-head in her office.
Nora thinks her father was killed by metahumans, which is why she thinks Iris hates them. She doesn't understand why, since she knows Iris was the first person to write about The Flash when he first appeared.
The Flash Museum says that The Flash got his powers from being struck by lightning.
Nora's first attempt at stopping a bank robbery ends with the robbers getting away after Nora accidentally destroys three police cruisers. Thankfully, Bug and Byte were found 10 minutes later, hunched over with runner's cramps.
Nora's supervisor is named Captain Fyre.
Nora is the second person in 15 years to visit Eobard Thawne.
According to Nora, everything about the Reverse Flash in the CCPD files is cyber-locked and there's almost nothing about him in The Flash Museum except for his name the date of his incarceration.
Thawne is being tortured in his cell, electrocuted with some device that generates red lightning or which is drawing the Speed Force out of him.
Lia determines that the scrap in Nora's scar was the power-canceling microchip that Iris implanted in Nora as a child which we first learned of in 504.
According to Nora, the only place in Central City that has Dioxygen Diflouride is Stagg Industries, which previously appeared in 102.
Lia is killed by Godspeed, who puts his hand through her chest at super-speed.
Iris releases Nora from her cell in the present, after reading about Lia's death and realizing that Nora only went to Thawne after the one person she thought she could trust died in her arms.
The CCPD was able to identify Godspeed thanks to the DNA he left in the exit wound after he killed Lia. They identify him as a man named August Heart.
According to August Heart's record, he's a former employee of Stagg Industries (Janitor), Dayton Labs (Inventory Manager), Mercury Labs (Intern) and a barista at three different C.C. Jitters locations. Like his comic-book counterpart, he has a deceased brother.
Nora recognizes August Heart as a man she saw at the Flash Museum all the time.
Watching a video of Zoom (from 206) Nora remembers that Godspeed's lighting briefly shifted from white to blue when he killed Lia. Nora then remembers that Trajectory (the evil female speedster from 216) had worked at Mercury Labs and her lightning was also blue. This leads her to conclude that Godspeed must be using a Velocity 9 variant to get his powers.
Thawne agrees to help Nora after she talks about Lia's death.
Thawne teaches Nora how to create an electrical shock by rubbing her hands together and using it to short out electronics.
Thawne tries to teach Nora how to phase through a concrete wall, using a similar speech to the one he gave Barry in 117.
Thawne's advice allows Nora to beat Godspeed.
Thawne reveals to Nora that he's about to be executed in 1 hour and 19 minutes, when she comes to tell him about her victory over Godspeed.
Thawne's last meal is from Big Belly Burger.
Thawne tells Nora how to find the Time Vault in what was STAR Labs and is now the Flash Museum, using the ring from his Reverse Flash costume as a key.
Nora discovers several containers holding old versions of The Flash's costumes, including the one she takes that she gave to Barry in 501. There is also a rack holding several costumes, including Iris' jacket from when she briefly had super-speed. This one will go on to become Nora's costume.
Gideon activates when Nora West-Allen touches her podium in the Time Vault. She knows who Nora is and reveals that her father was The Flash.
Gideon has a message for Nora, which Barry recorded for her just before his apparent death during the Crisis where he disappeared.
Before Nora went back and altered the timeline, apparently Barry had no idea that his daughter would inherit his powers.
Barry runs Nora back to her time and warns her to never try and come back to the past again, because he does not trust her.
Barry confronts Thawne in prison. Thawne asks him not to hold what happened against Nora and asks him to consider that a condemned man's last request.
When Barry leaves, the countdown past 10 minutes to Thawne's execution has begun.
Location
Central City - 2049
Iron Heights Prison - 2049
The Bottom Line
A definite contender for one of the strongest episode in the show's history. Easily the best of Season 5 so far, thanks to some strong direction and strong performances.
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