The Flash Episode Guide: Season 5, Episode 18 - Godspeed

For a summary of the episode guide layout & categories, click here.



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. 

The Flash Episode Guide: Season 5, Episode 17 - Time Bomb

For a summary of the episode guide layout & categories, click here.




Plot

With the timeline having been changed unexpectedly and the future Eobard Thawne officially giving up hope of fixing things, Nora is urged to come clean to her parents in the past about who she's been working with. Unfortunately, Nora isn't the only time-traveler in Central City 2019, with an adult Grace Gibbons having taken up her uncle's mantle as Cicada now hunting down the metahuman responsible for killing her parents.


Influences

The Flash comics of Geoff Johns.


Goofs

Seriously, where has Ralph been for the last two weeks? Did it really take him that long to check in with all his local underworld contacts?

 The new Cicada is said to have the power to negate other metahuman's powers, but Barry and Cisco didn't seem to have any troubles last week in their first fight with the future Grace Gibbons.

Much as we hate to side with the villain, we do have to agree with future Grace Gibbons that the CCPD were rather negligent in investigating her parents murder. While putting out an APB for every woman wearing a hoodie would have been impractical, it seems like after an ATM blew up they might have checked the records to see who used the ATM immediately before it blew up on the off chance it might have been their bomber.

Vicki Bolen claims to have seen the ATM explode and money flying everywhere but says that nobody got hurt. This completely contradicts Cisco's Vibe vision. While she might be in denial about the damage she caused, it does raise the question of why Barry and Joe don't confront her over The Gibbons' deaths and arrest her for manslaughter. (Of course blinking future Cicada out of existence by having her parents' killer tried would be boring to watch...)

Vickie Bolen is somehow able to use her powers despite the presence of the new Cicada and Nora West-Allen saying she's lost her speed. (We know it can't be because Vickie is a non-dark matter meta since Cicada specifically tracked her by her dark matter signature.)

For some reason, Team Flash is still adhering to the policy of getting a person's permission before giving them the metahuman cure in the case of Grace Gibbons. While the principle is fine in theory, Grace is a minor and they already have the permission of her guardian to cure her. Legally, that should be all they need. (This is doubly vexing because after explaining that they aren't giving the cure to anyone without their permission, Barry explains that Caitlin says it isn't safe to inject a child with a cure that was designed with adults in mind and the whole thing is especially risky to chance it given Grace's particularly fragile state.)

While we're used to the rules of time travel and how quickly changes are made to the future when something in the past is changed being entirely dependent on the plot at this point, it seems like we should have seen an instant paradox take effect when Future Grace kills her uncle, whom she said trained her to become the new Cicada.

If Future Grace Gibbons was able to figure out that STAR Labs had a time machine and was able to steal it and go back in time to try and kill her parents killer... why not go back and stop her parents from using that ATM in the first place? Why not kill the killer before her parents died? (We can't even use the excuse that Future Grace is too crazy to have realized this or is too mad about killing to not want a peaceful resolution because she outright says that the fact that her parents are dead is the important thing to her - not whether or not their deaths were an accident. So why not stop those deaths?!)

Why doesn't Future Grace Gibbons kill The Flash after she kills her uncle Orlin?!


Performances

I've missed Jesse R. Martin's expressions when he deals with the madness around him.


Artistry

The effects work on the scene where Barry tries to outrun Cicada's dagger in a narrow hospital hallway while changing into costume does look fantastic.


Flash Facts

The Starchive site which Grace Gibbons breaks into is located in Kolins Woods. This is a nod to artist Scott Kolins, who was the artist that co-created Cicada along with Geoff Johns. (Kolins Woods previously appeared in 503.)

The party that the new Cicada crashes is being held at a Central City business called Crash Crawly's. This is the name of a real-world kid's party restaurant in British Columbia, similar to Chuck E. Cheese's in the United States and it uses the same logo.

Ralph makes reference to "Peter Parkering" Kamilla, getting her a job working for Iris' newspaper. This is of a course a nod to Spider-Man's secret identity and how Peter Parker paid his bills as a photographer for The Daily Bugle. Ralph goes on to say that maybe Kamilla will be bitten by something radioactive hanging around STAR Labs and become a spider-person.


Technobabble

One of the notes scribbled on the blueprints for the Time Sphere says "Neutron Flows Cannot Be Reversed." This is a reference to one of the most famous bits of technobabble ever - "reverse the polarity of the neutron flow." While used in countless works of science fiction, the line is frequently attributed to Jon Pertwee, the third actor to play The Doctor. While he did often say "reverse the polarity", he only ever specifically referred to a neutron flow twice and only once during his original run as The Doctor. (He did say the line in The Five Doctors reunion special)

Future Grace has a device in her costume that can track the unique dark matter signature of a particular metahuman, getting close to an exact real-time location.

Nora says that Vickie Bowlen hyper-accelerated the molecules in the ATM, causing a violent chain-reaction that led to it exploding.

Eobard Thawne discovered that, much like DNA gives a human body instructions on how to function, the multiverse has its own source code that cannot be altered no matter what timeline you are in. This Time Code, as he calls it, allows him to write notes in a manner that will not be changed no matter how time changes based on his travels.

Caitlin says that Grace Gibbon's dark matter has a unique binding quality that allows her to telekinetically manipulate dark matter, even that in other people. Her powers are stronger than her uncle's because her wound was in her head, allowing the dark matter to go deeper into her brain.


Dialogue Triumphs

(Nora runs into Thawne's cell in Iron Heights. She is frantic. He watches the screen on his wall, impassive, turned away from her.)
Nora: Something went wrong! We got Dwyer. We gave him the cure! This should all be over! But another Cicada showed up, took Dwyer and the dagger!
(Thawne doesn't react. He doesn't say anything or turn around.)
Nora: Thawne! Did you hear what I said? Another Cicada showed up!
Thawne: (quietly) I know.
(Thawne turns around and regards Nora sadly as the picture on his screen clarifies into a picture of Barry fighting the new Cicada.)
Thawne: I know.
Nora: Who is that?
Thawne: I have no idea.
Nora: (angrily)You said manipulating the timeline would stop Cicada! You said you knew what you were doing!
Thawne: (barely a whisper) I know what I said. I was very wrong.
Nora: What do we do?! What do we do now?!
Thawne: I can't help you anymore, little runner.
Nora:What? You have to help me!
Thawne: It's too late.
Nora:No. There's gotta be something we can do. You you have to help!
Thawne: There is only one thing left to do. Tell your father. You tell your father everything.

Barry: Hey, by the way, this might not be our only lead. Do you remember that Time Sphere that we built for Thawne?
Joe: That big hamster ball thing?
Nora: Someone stole one in the future to come here.
Cicada: For what? Our Cicada copycat?
Joe: It makes sense. (blinks)  I can't even believe I just said that.

Nora: Hey.  You were wrong, you know.
Barry: About what?
Nora: About Vickie not wanting to tell her family about her abilities. It's her choice not to tell them.
Barry: Look, keeping a secret like that from her family is It's dangerous. I mean, they might get hurt or worse.
Nora: She's just trying to protect them.
Barry: I get that, I do, but I-I used to think that keeping secrets from people for their own good was a noble decision, that it would protect them. But when you do that, you just rob those people from making their own decisions. I even did it with you.
Nora: Like when you didn't want to take me to your past.
Barry: Mm-hmm. I didn't want you to see how painful things got for me as the Flash or how bad things got for your mom. But secrets are like walls, and you can't really know someone with walls between you.

(Barry and Nora exit the party center at super-speed and return in costume as The Flash and XS.)
The Flash: I don't see Cicada anywhere. Do you?
Alice Bolen's Daughter: It's The Flash! Mom, you got Flash and XS cosplayers for the party?!
The Flash: (uncertain, eventually speaking in a forced, melodramatic tone) Yeeeeeees, I am the Flash! And I love... soccer! Do you guys love soccer?
(The kids all shout "Yeah!" and chatter excitedly.)
The Flash: Do you want to... Yeah! Awesome! Come with me! Here, let's play some soccer over here. (starts trying to lead the kids outside) This way. This way! Come on!

(Barry and Nora have just witnessed things breakdown between The Bolens. Nora is biting her lip.) 
Barry: Hey, we did the right thing. We kept this family safe.
Nora: Then why does it feel like we made everything so much worse?

(Ralph enters into Cisco's lab. Cisco is working on some device.)
Ralph: Need any help with that, uh...
Cisco: Nope. Unless you came here to break something, in which case you'd be the perfect candidate.
Ralph: I deserve that. Never should've interfered with Kamilla. Sometimes, I forget how embarrassing I can be.
Cisco: I'm not embarrassed by you, and I'm not embarrassed by anyone on Team Flash. You guys are my family. You're not the problem. This is the problem. This is the problem. Kamilla is blissfully unaware of any of the madness that goes on in S. T. A. R. Labs, or that we routinely save the city from evil metas.
Ralph: Or that you have a secret identity and dress up in leather and go all pew-pew!
Cisco:  Especially the leather. (chuckles a bit) She and I, we got a good thing. And being with somebody has never felt so so easy. And when I'm with her, for once, I just feel like a normal dude, with a normal life and a social-media-official girlfriend, who happens to be a very talented photographer and not... a Spider-Person.
Ralph: (sighs) It's... that's amazing, man. It really is. And I promise that I will respect that. But I gotta ask... how long do you think you can keep those two worlds separate? Look, my mom dated this guy, Craig, and Craig was a tax accountant and a freelance bull rider. Never let one world know about the other, and it just tore him up. More than those bulls ever did.
Cisco: Mm. I should definitely be working.
Ralph: Look, the thing is, I get why you're afraid of losing what you have with Kamilla, but if you keep her out of this world, it seems to me that you're always gonna be turning off a part of yourself. That's not right. And if Craig hadn't been crushed to death by that huge filing cabinet I know he'd feel the same way.

Thawne/Wells: And so the timeline, it can be malleable, but my knowledge will be intractable.

(As Barry walks away from the Pipeline cell in which he locked Nora.)
Nora: Dad! I'm sorry I lied to you!
Barry: (turning around, speaking bitterly) So am I.
(Barry leaves as Nora starts to sob uncontrollably.)


Continuity

When Nora goes to Thawne in the opening scene, the time in his cell is now down to 12:00 minutes.

Orlin Dwyer's lung is said to be healing following his surgery.

The older Grace Gibbons reveals her identity to Orlin by showing him the dolls he made of her and him. She says that eventually she wakes from her coma and grows up, with Orlin training her to become the new Cicada.

Grace says that after she returns from taking care of one bit of business, she will help Orlin figure out how he gets his powers back. This implies that, in the future she is from, Orlin became Cicada again after having taken the metahuman cure.

Joe and Cecile question the hospital staff about Dr. Ambres. They confirm that nobody else knows anything about Orlin Dwyer's relationship with Dr. Ambres or where to find Dwyer now.

Sherloque completes his translation of the Time Language. He notes that most of Nora's diary is boring and it does nothing to indicate who she is working with, though he's certain she's using the diary to report to someone in the future.

Sherloque is revealed to be performing STAR Labs janitorial duties as part of working off the money he charged Team Flash.

The Cortex has been remodeled in the wake of last week's attack by Cicada, with a new comm desk.

Iris wrote an article about the new Cicada, but her readers haven't reported any new sightings.

Ralph said that he checked with Earl Cos and the rest of his underworld contacts but also has no leads on Orlin Dwyer or a new Cicada.

The STAR Labs satellite is scanning Central City for dark matter flares but, as Sherloque points out, they don't know that the new Cicada is a dark-matter infused metahuman.

Caitlin is said to be at the Tannhauser arctic site, working on figuring out how the new Cicada seemed to be able to control Team Flash.

The Starchives are locations outside of STAR Labs where they keep Flash related items that might be too dangerous to keep in their relatively public base.

An alarm is triggered at the Starchives site in Kolins Woods, which previously appeared in 503.

Sherloque and Cisco find what appears to be Eobard Thawne's Time Sphere from Season 1 in the forest.

Ralph and Iris find what appears to be the same Time Sphere still in storage.

The Starchive also contains the vacuum cleaner Cisco pretended was a weapon to bluff Captain Cold in 104.

A scratch test on the sphere in storage reveals that the Time Sphere in the woods is the same Time Sphere, traveled back in time from some point in the future. This leads them to conclude that the future Cicada stole the Time Sphere.

Future Grace robs the evidence locker at CCPD headquarters. She is shown to be able to use her daggers to cut through a reinforced concrete wall.

Later, it is determined that all Future Grace took was a single cold case file that had yet to be digitized. Barry is able to figure out what is missing by sorting all the other records at super-speed.

Kamilla's full name is revealed as Kamilla Hwang.

Cisco and Kamilla are now in a relationship and change their social media status accordingly.

Cisco has still not told Kamilla about his life as a superhero or a super-scientist and he wants to keep his life compartmentalized.

Kamilla has a gig taking Easter Bunny photos.

Ralph mistakes Jason, a barista at C.C. Jitters, for a different barista named Larry.

Larry gets Ralph the wrong coffee, either because he honestly doesn't know what Ralph's usual is or to spite Ralph for not remembering his name.

Sherloque finds the original blueprints for Thawne's Time Sphere. They have the words "The Timeline Is Malleable." written on them in Thawne's handwriting.

The cold-case file that Cicada took involved two people who died in a metahuman attack at the site of an ATM.

Cisco vibes the burned concrete around the new ATM computer to see a woman touching the ATM and discharging some kind of energy from her hand just before a young couple walk up to the ATM and it blows up as we see a screaming child in a parked car nearby. The child is Grace Gibbons.

Nora recalls Grace picturing herself as Cicada in her mind in 512. This leads the team to the conclusion that the new Cicada is the future Grace Gibbons.

Future Grace rages to Orlin Dwyer that the CCPD did nothing to investigate her parents' deaths, despite three witnesses seeing a woman in a hoodie at the ATM before it exploded.

The CCPD file contains a piece of the ATM which is charred by dark matter residue.

Future Grace has a device in her costume that can track the unique dark matter signature of a particular metahuman.

Future Grace says that in her time, the number of metahumans has increased substantially. She says she came back to track the metahuman who killed her parents and then help Orlin with "the mission" (i.e. killing all metahumans.)

Joe. Barry and Nora track the last person to use the ATM before The Gibbons down at a party being held for a kids' soccer team called The Lighting Strikes. The card belonged to a Vickie and John Bolen.

The Gibbons died on May 4, 2017.

The ATM that blew up was located near the corner of Kingswell and 42nd.

Vickie Bolen says that the ATM sparked after she touched it and she felt something awaken in that moment. She was afraid the police would think she was trying to rob the bank and hoped what she did to break the ATM would just be ignored.

Vickie Bolen has kept her powers secret from her family and refuses Barry's offer of police protection after they explain that Cicada may be coming for her.

Ralph introduces Kamilla to Iris and tells her Iris is looking to hire a photographer for her newspaper. Cisco is less than thrilled about Ralph interfering in his girlfriend's life behind his back.

Sherloque finds a hidden flash drive inside of a compartment in the left arm of Eobard Thawne's old wheelchair from his days masquerading as the Harrison Wells of Earth One.

Ralph and Joe explain to Nora that there was once a time when Central City kept metahuman crimes under-wraps in the local press, by order of then Mayor Bellows, in trying to explain why Vickie Bolen might not know that she killed two people. He did this in order to cover up the activities of the metahuman thugs he had on his payroll. This was revealed in 404.

Nora has a psychic flash where her eyes glow red. She can feel the presence of the Future Grace Gibbons and her knife. She guesses that she must still have a connection from when she entered her mind with Sherloque's Memory Machine.

Vickie Bolen is able to use her energy powers to charge a soccer ball and throw it at the new Cicada. The power acts like a bomb and knocks Cicada off her feet when she tries to block it with her knife. The bomb also knocks down her daughter, Alice.

Cecile is pained by the amount of hatred for metahumans she feels inside the comatose Grace Gibbons.

Alice Bolen is hospitalized due to the injuries she squired when she is caught in her mother's bomb blast. She is now afraid of her mother.

John Bolen is furious that his wife didn't tell him that she had powers and tries to kick her out of their daughter's hospital room. Joe takes him away to try and talk to him.

Ralph promises to back off on trying to bring Kamilla into Cisco's work life but politely  suggests that Cisco's trying to compartmentalize his life and hide parts of himself from Kamilla can only end badly.

Orlin Dwyer reads the police report and notes that no mone was taken from the crime scene, despite the ATM exploding. He says it sounds like the death of Grace's parents honestly was an accident. She is not pleased by this and says he sounds like The Flash and XS.

Future Grace tells Orlin that she killed Dr. Ambres for taking away his powers.

Orlin tells Grace that all he wanted was to make her happy and safe. He tells her he fully intended to cure himself and her.

Sherloque accessess the Gideon computer in the Time Vault to play the flash drive he found. It pulls up a video file of Thawne, log 247, where he discusses the problems of  knowing when time is changed by a time-traveler and how he overcame this by discovering a time code that cannot be altered by time-travelers.

This leads Sherloque to confirm that the second handwriting sample in Nora's journal belongs to Thawne.

Vickie Bolen is able to make peace with her daughter Alice.

The new Cicada has the power to block Vibe's breaches, making him unable to pass through them by blasting them with her energy when they open.

Future Cicada kills Orlin Dwyer when he tries to talk her down and says that killing isn't the answer to dealing with metahumans and that she doesn't have to live in anger.

The Bolens are put into the Federal Witness Protection Program.

Sherloque reveals Nora's secret - that she has been working with Eobard Thawne - just as she is about to say it herself, but she can't find the words to explain.

The episode ends with Barry locking Nora in one of the pipeline cells.


Location

Iron Heights Prison - 2049

The Boomerang Factor

More of the usual nonsense with Cicada being able to have killed The Flash a while ago except for suddenly leaving at the end of the fight scene despite The Flash being helpless and it being unclear just if/when the new Cicada is capable of negating a metahuman's powers.


The Bottom Line

Quite possibly the single-worst episode of the show to date, at least from the perspective of continuity and adhering to the basic rules of the show's universe. What's weird is that there's a number of great lines and the ensemble cast does a great job of selling everything. Emotionally, the resonance of the episode is solid. Logically, not a damned thing makes sense. But at least we won't have to hear Uncle Orlin growling his way through his monologues anymore.

The Flash Episode Guide: Season 5, Episode 16 - Failure is an Orphan

For a summary of the episode guide layout & categories, click here.




Plot

With the meta-cure proven to work, Team Flash now faces the problem of how to subdue the murderous Cicada long enough to ask him if he'd want to take it. Nora is less than pleased with Barry's plans, though her time journal now shows that this is the day Cicada makes his final appearance before disappearing for decades. Killer Frost is on all board, however, as Joe eases back into the swing of things at the CCPD.


Flash Facts

The title of the episode comes from a proverb - "Success has many fathers, but failure is an orphan." The original source of the quote is unknown and has been attributed over the years to Russian folklore, Roman generals, fascist dictators and John F. Kennedy.

In discussing how he has mapped out the timeline, Eobard Thawne says that he has charted it from Anthro the First Boy to Kamandi the Last. This refers to two different "caveman" heroes from DC Comics.

Anthro the First Boy was a Cro-Magnon born to Neanderthal parents, who starred in his own six-issue mini-series in 1968. He has gone on to have cameo roles in series ranging from Crisis on Infinite Earths to Final Crisis.

Kamandi: The Last Boy on Earth was the star of a short-lived series written and drawn by Jack Kirby, which was inspired by the success of Planet of the Apes. The story focused on the titular last pure-blooded human boy on Earth and his efforts to survive in the ruins of the world of before, contending with various evolved animal-men. It was never explicitly said that Kamandi lived in the future of the DC Universe, though it was eventually established that he lived in the potential future of one alternate Earth during Crisis on Infinite Earths.Since that time, Kamandi has had cameos in various mini-series, including Final Crisis.

Along with dark matter and meta-gene bursts, Nora has STAR Labs satellite searching for Element-X. Also known as The Tenth Metal and "The Fire Of The Fourth World" in the lore of DC Comics, Element X is said to be the purest form of creation itself and can be manipulated by thought alone to accomplish nearly anything. A small amount of Element X is said to be within all living beings in the universe and it is used to power all New Gods technology.

Dr. Ambres is said to have gotten her medical degree at McInder University. This is almost certainly a nod to Dr. Charles McInder - the secret identity of the JSA member Dr. Mid-Nite, who was a brilliant surgeon in his secret identity. (This is somewhat confusing in the reality of the Arrowverse, where Dr. Mid-Nite was sent forward in time and became a surgeon in the year 3000 before being killed by a brainwashed Rip Hunter in season 2 of Legends of Tomorrow!.)

Cisco dubs the acid-drinking and expelling metahuman that Flash and XS briefly fight with the name Acid Master before learning that his real name is Philip Master. We don't learn much about this metahuman and his powers or motivations, beyond his apparently having an urge to drink various strong acids, the ability to do so without being harmed and having the ability to expel those acids from his hands as if they were shot from high-pressure fire-hoses.

In the original DC Comics universe, there was a villain called Acid Master whose real name was also Philip Master. Numbering only one appearance in Action Comics #348 (March 1967), this version of Acid Master was not a metahuman, but a communist spy and master chemist whose specialty was creating weaponized acids. Clark Kent was recruited as a special FBI agent to track and subdue the Acid Master, on the grounds that no one would suspect the mild-mannered reporter of acting as a government agent. Naturally Kent was more than up to the job, secretly being Superman.


Technobabble

Sodium bicarbonate can be used to neutralize nearly any acid, according to Barry.

Prednisone, Sirolimus and Abatacept are all drugs classified as immunosuppressants.

Cisco suggests building an anti-dampening array to stop Cicada.

Cisco says he can stop Cicada by resequencing the Speed Force Bazooka to overload his body with negative tachyons.


Dialogue Triumphs

(Iris is on the phone.)
Iris: Well, it's interesting that you say that, sir, since it's your company that's denying the Robertson family's claim. Yes, of course, I have the contract right in front of me.
(Barry runs in and hands Iris a sheath of papers.)
Iris: (glancing through the papers) And it says that animal attacks do not fall under Acts of God, and that includes gorillas.

(The Flash runs into a lab to find Acid Master drinking a bottle of hydrochloric acid.)
The Flash: Been a while since high school chem, but that does not look like proper lab safety.

(Nora is running through all the times Barry was able to talk a villain into surrendering.)
Barry: Nora, all all of these times are are different. Cicada doesn't even care if he lives when this is over. What am I supposed to say that he'll care about?
Nora: (proudly) You'll know. The Flash always knows.

(Barry and Joe are discussing Barry's failure to talk down Cicada.)
Joe: Wait, what exactly did you say to him?
Barry: That he was creating a legacy of fear, one that would go down in history, but that we could work together to change that.
Joe: That sounds like something the Flash would say.
Barry: Well, I -am- the Flash.
Joe: Look, that man's a zealot. He sees you in that suit and all he sees is the thing he hates. Meta-human, superpowers, the thing that took his niece away from him. He can't see past The Flash. But what he doesn't know There's a whole lot more to you than that. Be more Barry Allen. Human.
Barry: Yeah, you're right. Thanks. I'm gonna dive back in. I'll let you get back to running down Ambres.
Joe: Actually... me and Cecile ran into a wall ourselves. We are uh, she like, working together. I mean, ever since she got her powers, it's like she's a human lie detector.
Barry: How is that a bad thing?
Joe: You know I've always prided myself on being able to read people, right? But Cecile and these powers, I mean, she puts me to shame.
Barry: Well, you just got to remember that you guys are a team. That makes her strengths your strengths and yours hers. So if you let her do what she's great at, it's only going to create more room for you to do more of what you're great at too, right?
Joe: Well, damn. You're getting real good at these pep talks, Bare.
Barry: Well, I had a pretty good teacher.
(Both men laugh.)

Cisco: Okay, one fresh serving of piping hot meta-human cure.
Dr. Ambres: I'm just supposed to trust that that thing works? Has it gone through any human testing? Cisco: It's gone through giant shark testing.


Continuity

When Nora visits Thawne as the episode opens, the timer in his cell is down to 18:53.

Thawne says that a new timeline is trying to manifest, which is undoing the set future where a newspaper article shows a photo of the final battle between Cicada and The Flash. The photo shows Cicada and Flash in an alley way, where the concrete is stained with acid burns.

Iris defends Barry's decision to try and talk sense into Cicada by pointing out he was successful in doing the same thing with The Mechanic in 423. She then admits that Barry totally failed to talk sense into Savitar in 323.

While going through the CCPD files on Cicada, Joe notices that one Dr. Vanessa Ambres treated both Grace Gibbons and Orlin Dwyer on the night of the Enlightenment and she continues to be Grace Gibbons' care provider, despite being assigned to the emergency room rather than long-term care. He also notices that the nurses reported a large number of drugs going missing from the coma ward. This leads Joe to conclude that Dr. Ambres must be working with Cicada, as he'd need a doctor's treatment to keep going with the wound Iris said he had in his chest.

Joe and Cecile agree to question Dr. Ambres together.

Barry fakes a distress call to get himself and Iris and Nora to C.C. Jitters, in order to surprise Nora with the news that a drink has been named in honor of her superhero identity - The XS-presso.

Barry and Iris' list of things they want to do with Nora before she returns to the future includes Skiing, sneaking onto the roof at Jitters, Zip-lining, eating at Sebastiano's, a Star Wars movie marathon, laser tag, teaching Nora how to drive, camping, karaoke and a midnight screening of The Rocky Horror Picture Show. Not listed, but mentioned, are going on a trip together and making Grandma Esther's famous sweet potato pie together.

Barry and Nora confront a new metahuman criminal, who is stealing and drinking acid in the chemistry lab at Central City University.

Nora explains that the acid burns left behind by the acid-drinking meta match those in a photo of the final battle between The Flash and Cicada. She says this must mean that the acid-drinking meta was Cicada's final target.

Sherloque asks why Nora didn't mention this before. Nora lies and says most of the information from her time she can remember has been unreliable but this has stayed solid so far.

Joe and Cecile don't do a good job questioning Dr. Ambres, with Joe trying to rely on his own gut instincts and police experience and Cecile overdoing it trying to signal him that she senses Dr. Ambres is lying.

Nora runs through several instances of Barry being able to talk villains down. These include Magenta in 302, Captain Cold in 203, Killer Frost in 307, Amunet Black in 421 and Plastique in 105. (The historical record may be incomplete in this case, at it was Killer Frost who bargained for Amunet Black's help, not Barry.)

Sherloque's translation of Nora's time language is 71% complete.

When Cisco asks if he is excited about almost having Cicada caught, Sherloque says he will be happy to go home, but he somehow senses his work on Earth 1 is not done yet.

Team Flash set up an ambush, with Killer Frost pretending to be Acid Master. She freezes Cicada's dagger so Barry has time to try and talk to him.

Barry tries to win Cicada over by telling him about the metahuman cure and saying that he's seen the future and Cicada's legacy is that of a monster, not a hero.

Cicada says he doesn't give a damn about his legacy and he almost kills Barry before being driven off by Killer Frost.

Joe and Cecile discover that Dr. Ambres' fiancee was killed during Zoom's rampage in Season 2. She has harbored a hatred of metahumans ever since.

Joe and Cecile tell Dr. Ambres about the meta-cure. She then agrees to help arrange a meeting with Cicada.

Joe and Cecile are told one more piece of information; Grace Gibbons is a metahuman, her powers having apparently activated in the last few weeks.

Sherloque suggests trying to incapacitate Cicada with the Memory Machine from 512.

Cisco wants to re-purpose the Speed Force Bazooka into a negative tachyon gun to stop Cicada.

Caitlin just wants to freeze Cicada from the neck down.

Barry ultimately elects to just talk to him, father to father, and tell him that Grace is a metahuman but STAR Labs can help save them both.

Nora reveals she had her own list of things she wanted to do while in the past. This included her parent's wedding, getting coffee at Jitters, being there the night of The Enlightenment and her Aunt Jenna's baby shower.

Cicada agrees to let Team Flash give him the meta-cure, but only if Dr. Ambres is there to assist with the surgery to fix the wound in his chest once he loses the powers that are keeping him alive despite it.

Cecile leaves the operating theater, unable to stand reading the rage coming from Cicada. This confirms that Cecile's powers are, like Caitlin's, not affected by Cicada's.

A new Cicada attacks STAR Labs just as Orlin Dwyer loses his powers and Killer Frost ice-sutures his chest wound shut. The new Cicada cannot negate metahuman abilities, but is able to parry bullets, The Flash's lightning, Vibe's sonic blasts and Killer Frost's ice blasts with their knives. They are also telekinetic and pin The Flash to the wall with an energy field while throwing furniture at the rest of Team Flash.

The new Cicada kills Dr. Ambres and escapes with the comatose Orlin Dwyer.

The final scene of the episode reveals the new Cicada to be an adult Grace Gibbons.


Location

Iron Heights - 2049


Untelevised Adventures

Acid Master is captured and subdued off-camera.


The Bottom Line

A serviceable but largely forgettable episode until the last five minutes, at which point it becomes much more than the sum of its parts. The new Cicada is an immediate smash and much more engaging (though that's largely because she doesn't have the laughable growly bad guy voice and isn't invincible.) A turning point for the season.

The Flash Episode Guide: Season 5, Episode 15 - King Shark vs. Gorilla Grodd

For a summary of the episode guide layout & categories, click here.



Plot

Cisco has completed work on the metahuman cure, but they still need a willing test subject to make sure it works. Barry suggests that King Shark - currently in the custody of ARGUS - might be just the man-shark for the job. Unfortunately, their visit coincides with Gorilla Grodd's attempt to escape custody and take over Central City with his newly honed psychic powers.


Influences

Traditional monster fighting monsters movies, The Shape of Water (subplot of woman falling in love with a fish monster) and The Flash comics of John Broome.


Goofs

Where the heck is Ralph Dibny this week? I know they probably couldn't afford two animal monsters AND the stretch guy this week, but it would have been nice if something had been said about where Ralph was.

Again, it must be noted how odd it is that Cisco - an engineer - is working on a cure for metahuman powers, while Caitlin - a medical doctor - constructs the delivery system.

It also seems strange that neither Caitlin nor Cisco had previously raised their objections to forcing their cure on metahumans who don't want to lose their powers... such as when Barry first suggested using their cure against Cicada weeks ago!

Even by the standards of comic book junk science, the idea that there is no way they'll ever be able to cure King Shark if he reverts back to his shark state is pure plot convenience. Or inconvenience in this case.


Performances

I didn't realize how much I missed Jesse L. Martin as Joe until they brought him back. While his subplot here is strictly unnecessary and is only there to make us realize how much we missed him... still good to have him back. Hopefully he'll be back in action soon.

The cast in general do a good job acting to empty air and suggesting that they believe all the various CGI beasties really are there.


Artistry

While the CGI is hardly the show's best, it is probably the best we could have hoped for given the difficulties of two CGI creatures fighting. And the effects team does a good job trying to make it look like the creatures have weight in the actual environment, even if Grodd seems way too bouncy for an 800 pound gorilla.


Flash Facts

Grodd is said to have climbed up the Broome Belfry. Located at the center of Central City, this building is doubtlessly named in honor of John Broome - a legendary Silver Age comics writer, who was probably most famous for his work on The Flash.


Technobabble

The metahuman cure works by altering a person's biology on a cellular level and suppressing the dark matter inside a metahuman's body.

Dark matter levels vary from meta-human to meta-human.

The Shay Lamden of Earth-Two developed a dark matter anomaly similar to the Shay Lamden of Earth-One. The difference is that while the Earth-One Lamden developed a mutated mass of tumors, which killed him, the Earth-Two Shay Lamden's neural pathways regressed, becoming more and more shark-like in his thinking.

Dr. Tanya Lamden was able to reverse King Shark's regression using a cerebral interface that stimulates his neural outputs, which she calls a telepathic crown.

Cisco compares the telepathic crown to the Mental Activity Dampener 2.0, even before they try using the two technologies together to increase their power and act as a lure for King Shark. The two are made to interact using a logarithmic code.

After having the metahuman cure used on him, King Shark's body still has some dark matter in his pituitary gland - the result of the first cure not being made with animal physiology in mind. A second dose, modified based on his unique biology should make his transformation to an ordinary human permanent.

A shark's amygdala triggers a huge emotional response when it feels attacked. Caitlin theorizes this is why Shay Lamden remembers very little of his early days as King Shark apart from rage.

Caitlin determines that King Shark's earlier rampage was caused by a severe brain wave disruption in his frontal lobe, resulting in a complete lack of control over emotions and judgment.The way the neurotransmitters work in the telepathic crown work never would have caused that. This leads to the revelation that Grodd was trying (and failing) to telepathically control King Shark.

Sharks only see in monochrome.

With the telepathic crown, Grodd's telepathy is powerful enough to override the anti-mind-control headsets that Cisco developed.

A vibration or jolt could be used to accelerate the cell cycle in Shay Lamden, prompting a return to the dark matter cellular form. Unfortunately,  saturating his metagene cells a second time will eliminate any possibility of the meta cure being able to ever restore him to normal.

When a shark is turned upside down, it enters tonic immobility - a state of paralysis.

Sharks have electroreceptor organs called ampullae of Lorenzini? It's how they detect electromagnetic fields and navigate. The organ can also attract electrical currents, which enables The Flash to wake up King Shark with a thrown lightning bolt.


Dialogue Triumphs

Sherloque: Monsieur Lamden, I should introduce myself. Sherloque Wells. You've probably heard of me. I have a question. I've been debating in my brain. What drives the King Shark? Is it the shark, or is it the man?
Shay Lamden: If you're asking should I be held accountable for my actions, my answer is simple. Yes, I should. I don't remember how many people I hurt, or who, but that's no excuse.

Sherloque: I see him out there and I see you in here in the shadows. Why is that, I wonder?
Tanya: Can you blame me? You saw his hand transform.
Sherloque: (chuckles) Yes, right. "Shark Week!" Not something you see every day, but no, I thought your hesitation occurred before that moment, not after. It was a slight hesitation, but it was there nonetheless. Again, why do you think that is?
Tanya: I don't know.
Sherloque: No? Well, perhaps I could be so bold as to offer a suggestion that it is not the hand of which you were frightened, but rather, it was seeing the face of the man that you love.
Tanya: I don't love Shay. We're friends.
Sherloque: All right, well, let's take a look at that too, shall we? So this is a friend from another Earth, for whom you left a high-paying job and for whom you have dedicated every waking moment of your life trying to help. It doesn't quite add up.
Tanya: I can't love Shay. He's my dead husband's doppelganger from Earth-2. How crazy would I have to be to fall in love with him?
Sherloque: No crazier than marrying the same woman from five different Earths. (laughs quietly) I know. I'm very good at marrying people, but not so great at staying married. Along the way, though, on these countless Earths and countless doppelgangers, I learned there is one thing that makes all of us unique. And if that is what you fell in love with, well then, perhaps a face doesn't matter that much.

Grodd: Hear your master, Humans. Soon, you will only know my will...The will of Grodd!

King Shark: Tanya, you look sad. Why?
Tanya: We found each other today, and now that connection is -
King Shark: Still here.
Tanya: Shay... What you did...
King Shark: I would do it again for you, my love.
(King Shark puts his hand against the glass of the tank. Tanya does the same.)


Continuity

Grodd was last seen in L317 as part of Damien Darhk's team. Before that, he was last seen on The Flash in 314.

King Shark and Dr. Tanya Lamden were last seen in 215.

ARGUS Director Lyla Michaels makes an appearance. She is informed of Nora's status as Barry's daughter from the future and comments that this is no stranger than finding out your son used to be your daughter - a reference to how Barry's time-traveling somehow caused Sara Diggle to become John Diggle Jr.

Joe West returns from his trip visiting Wally West in Tibet.

Joe suggests that someone besides Officer Jones might be helping Cicada out.

ARGUS hired Dr. Tanya Lamden to work with King Shark to try and find a way to improve his condition.

King Shark is agreeable to trying the cure, before he suddenly goes on a rampage.

Joe is allergic to Szechuan peppers.

Iris seems to have developed a fear of her new office, after hearing about all the times she died there after the events of 514.

Barry injects King Shark with the metacure after he grapples Cisco. The cure works, transforming him back into an ordinary human.

Shay Lamden says he only remembers fragments of his time as King Shark before Tanya began working with him.

It is revealed that Grodd escaped his cell at ARGUS by planting a psychic suggestion in his guard's mind when the power was knocked out and the power dampeners in his cell turned off during The Enlightenment. The suggestion was to keep the power dampeners powered down while Grodd bid his time and gathered the information he needed for a new plan to take over Central City.

This led to Grodd's discovery of King Shark's telepathic crown and the realization he could use that to augment his telepathy to rule a whole city.

Sunset is Shay Lamden and Tanya Lamden's favorite time of day.

Joe reveals to Iris that the reason he stayed in Tibet for so long was so that he could heal himself after his confrontation with Cicada in 503.

Joe tried to help Iris work through her fears by having her punch them out on a punching bag.

The Flash Museum wrongly says that speedsters are immune to Gorilla Grodd's telepathy.

Shay Lamden elects to become King Shark again, since Grodd can't control his half-shark brain.

King Shark beats Gorilla Grodd.

Grodd is placed in a medically induced coma to prevent him from telepathically controlling his guards ever again.

Ever since being exposed to the telepathic crown, Grodd's telepathic powers are now growing without any outside stimuli. A coma was the only thing Caitlin could think of that would keep him alive without endangering his life.

Cisco also develops a new set of AI-enhanced power dampeners for Grodd's cell at ARGUS that continually upgrade to match Grodd's power level.

Cisco's favorite comfort food is Swedish Fish candy.

Barry thinks the team should approach Cicada and offer to let him take the metahuman cure.


Untelevised Adventures

It is never explained just how Grodd was returned to ARGUS custody after having become unstuck in time during Legends of Tomorrow Season 3. Presumably the Time Bureau returned him to his cell after Grodd's attack on Amaya Jiwe's village in 1992.


The Boomerang Factor.

The chief fight of the episode could have been avoided had Barry not very slowly worked his way to the downed Grodd and removed his crown at super-speed.


The Bottom Line

The episode takes its time in delivering its promised fight, but once we get it... it's there. It's not that the fight is dissatisfying, but it takes forever for Grodd to be revealed and there's something awfully strange about an episode where the main characters are acting like cardboard cut-outs while the most satisfying emotional subplot involves two characters we haven't seen in three years. The bits with Joe and Iris are okay, but feel completely disconnected from everything else.

For a filler episode based around a ludicrous comic-book idea though, this episode is oddly satisfying. But it would have been better had the premise been given two episodes for Grodd's plan to be better fleshed out, like the last time he attacked Central City and for us to have had more time to develop the conflict between Barry's desire to use the cure to save lives and Cisco and Caitlin not wanting to turn it into a weapon against every metahuman some other authority decides shouldn't have powers. There was a time and a place for this argument and it was several episodes ago when Barry first suggested using the cure against Cicada. Again, more time (and a second episode) might have helped with this. All in all, though... not a bad bit of filler.

The Flash Episode Guide: Season 5, Episode 14 - Cause and XS

For a summary of the episode guide layout & categories, click here.



Plot

After Iris is endangered by Cicada, Nora starts using time-travel to try and save the day, only to progressively make the situation even worse. Meanwhile, with the metahuman cure nearly complete, Cisco takes a night off for a date with his new friend, the bartender Kamilla.


Influences

The movies Groundhog Day (the character keeps relieving the same day over and over trying to find a way to break the loop) and Run, Lola, Run (a woman running to save her boyfriend causes slight variations in the chain of events as we see the same sequence play out multiple times)


Goofs

If Ralph was at his office when Cicada attacked Iris the first time, why wasn't he the first one there when Iris' panic alarm was activated?

Really, how many more times is the team going to take down Cicada and then just stand there as he gets away?  Just dog-pile him and put the meta-blockers on him!

Honestly, the most unforgivable aspect of this episode is they didn't go with the much better title of Run, Nora, Run.


Artistry

The effects work and transitions as Nora runs back in time is rather nice.


Flash Facts

Nora attempts to change the past 52 times. This is yet another repeated use of the number 52, which, as has been noted before, is a number of some significance in the DC Comics Universe.

Cisco says that he doesn't have to dress like Ozone to impress Kamilla. This is a reference to the movie Breakin'.


Technobabble

The metahuman cure requires one month to fully synthesize.

Sherloque suggests the Speed Force might be used to enhance the synthesis process. All compounds are formed by a catalyst and the most efficient catalyst for a compound that negates dark matter is super-luminal particles like tachyons. Since the densest tachyons in existence lie inside The Speed Force, a trip with the metahuman cure through the heart of the Speed Force should prepare it in the span of an hour.

Cicada's dagger is revealed to allow him to detect nearby metahumans. This allows him to find Ralph in the office across the hall from Iris' office, when Cicada goes looking for Iris and she isn't there.

When Cisco is lying about what kind of workouts he indulges in, he mentions pilates for the core, plyometrics for the quads and circuit training along with finger push-ups.


Dialogue Triumphs

(Nora, having just traveled back in time, runs into Ralph, who asks if Cisco has left for his date yet.)
Nora: I don't think so.
Ralph: Great! I get another chance at this.
(Ralph walks into the main lab. Nora looks into the room and sees everyone else, realizing where.. and when... she is.)
Nora: ... we do.

(On the third time through the loop.)
Barista 1: One Zoom and one decaf Flash.
Kamilla: Thank you.
(Cisco is about to reach for one of the cups then stops himself.)
Cisco: Something's wrong.
(Barista 1 gives him the side-eye.)
Cisco: And I think I have to go.
Kamilla: Right now?
Cisco: No. (pointing to his phone on the table) Right... now.
(The trouble alert on Cisco's phone goes off.)
Cisco: (sadly) Yep. Gotta go. (getting up) Umm - I'd ask if we could have a do-over, but, um, something tells me we already have.
(Cisco exits, leaving a stunned Kamilla behind, stammering in shock.)
Barista 1: The men in this city.
Barista 2: Tell me about it.

Cisco: Nora, sometimes we fail because all we worry about is not failing.


Dialogue Disasters

Cicada: You said you were going to beat me, but tonight... (growling) I'm going to beat you.  All of you.


Continuity

Cisco has started looking at Kamilla's photos on-line in anticipation of their date. He worries she might be too good for him.

Nora refers to Barry having to stay in the Pipeline for 24 houirs in 510 and Iris' encounter with Cicada in 513 to persuade Barry not to go into the Speed Force alone right now.

Ralph has written a companion book to The Book of Ralph from 502 called The Book Of Love. It follows up his 27-step plan for getting over a bad-breakup with a blueprint for approaching a first date. The book includes chapters on Initial Planning (Chapter One), Knowing Your Terrain (Chapter Six) and Intelligence and Reconnaissance (Chapter Thirteen). This last step involves looking at her public profile on social media and determining what kind of men she has been interested in in the past.

Caitlin and Sherloque excuse themselves to finish working on the injection device for the metahuman cure.

Iris goes back to her office to work on a story.

At 8:27 PM, Iris is knocked out by Cicada.

There is a drink called The Cicada at C.C. Jitters.

Based on a picture of Kamilla with some guy in a suit and slicked-back hair, Cisco shows up for the date in a suit with slicked back hair.

Cisco tries to play the suave businessman but only comes off as a conceited prick who profits off of other people's work after Kamilla asks why he wears a business suit in the lab (remembering his using science terms when they first met in 512) and he lies about working for Ramon Industries.

Kamilla's drink of choice is a Decaf Flash.

Cisco's drink of choice is the Zoom.

When Cisco gets Iris' alarm warning, he asks Kamilla for a raincheck. She doesn't even say goodbye as she leaves.

Iris' alarm sounds at 8:52 PM.

Cicada throws his dagger in a long arc and commands it to hit Killer Frost in the back when it comes back to him, having seen XS and Killer Frost coming.

Nora runs back in time to just as Ralph was arriving at STAR Labs with The Book of Love.

Sherloque seems to recognize something is wrong when Nora comes back the second time.

Nora persuades Iris to stay at STAR Labs on her second time around.

This time, without Nora in the lab to watch Cisco as he is looking through Ralph's photos of Kamilla, this time he sees one of her being lifted up by a large, sporty-looking fellow.

Cicada goes to Iris' office but she isn't there. This leads to him sensing Ralph, who is across the hall in his detective agency, and Cicada knocking Ralph out. This time, he recognizes Ralph as Elongated Man but otherwise gives the same speech about beating all of Team Flash tonight.

The second time, Cisco shows up for his date in a t-shirt and ball-cap. He tries to play the part of a gym rat, but Kamilla said she thought he was the kind of guy more concerned with flexing his mental muscles than his physical ones.

This second time, Cisco touches Kamilla's hand as they reach for the same drink instead of being stopped by the barista. He vibes the baristas making derisive comments about his not knowing a decaf from his own drink by looking and how the men in Central City are idiots.

Once again, Kamilla leaves when Cisco asks for a do-over date, without saying a word.

The second time, Raph shouts a warning about Cicada's dagger and Nora moves Killer Frost out of the way, only for Ralph to be stabbed by Cicada's dagger.

The third time, Sherloque definitely seems to think something is up with Nora but says nothing. 

Nora convinces Iris to stay and write her article at STAR Labs and convinces Ralph to stay and try some of the brownies she has in the lounge.

Nora encourages Cisco to look at Ralph's collection of pictures of Kamilla. This time, when he handles them, he vibes Kamilla saying that she thought he was a man who flexes his brain rather than his muscles from the second time Nora time-traveled.

Sherloque also seems to notice Cisco's odd reaction, which Cisco describes as deja vu.

It is 8:07 PM when Cisco leaves for his date the third time.

The third time, Sherloque goes to Iris' office and is ambushed by Cicada at 8:27 PM.

The third time, Cisco shows up for his date looking like a male model and claiming to be a social media influencer. He gives Kamilla a business card. This time, when he touches her hand, he vibes her saying that the last time they spoke he was talking about genomes and DNA so she assumed he was a scientist.

The third time, Kamilla orders their drinks instead of Cisco.

This time, Nora goes in to face Cicada alone, not taking Caitlin with her. Unfortunately, being Cisco left his date earlier, he gets there just in time to get stabbed in the back by Cicada before Nora gets there.

The fourth time, Nora takes everyone into the lounge and tells them they have to stay there for one hour.

The fourth time, Cisco vibes Ralph showing him the photos he took from Kamilla's profile and the details from his previous dates about what kind of man she thought Cisco was.

The fourth time, Cicada breaks into Iris' office and finds a picture of Iris with Joe and Cecile.

The fourth time, Cisco texts Kamilla and says he won't be able to make their date because of a problem at work.

The fourth time, Cicada takes Cecile Horton hostage and she is stabbed with the dagger before Nora arrives.

This leads into a rapid fire montage where everyone dies again, several times, in different ways, with Ralph in costume as Elongated Man dying at one point.

Nora tries entering into the Speed Force to find her dad and get his help, but she can't do it for some reason. She also can't go back to before Barry entered the Speed Force.

After 52 attempts, everyone figures out that Nora is reversing time.

Ralph says this may be one of the fixed points that The Legends theorized and that there's no way to alter things so that nobody dies.

Cisco tells Nora about how he once died in an alternate timeline in 115.

Nora has seen both Breakin' movies.

Team Flash finally breaks the chain by having Iris lure Cicada to the roof. He throws the dagger as he sees XS approaching, at which point Vibe, Elongated Man and Killer Frost arrive.  Vibe creates two portals as Elongated Man stretches his arm and Killer Frost ice blasts toward Cicada.  The dagger almost hits Ralph, but it goes backward as Nora reverses time. She uses Elongated Man's arm as a dragline and runs through Killer Frost's blast, which slows her down enough to steer her way throubh one Vibe portal and out the other. This lets Nora push Cicada into the path of his own dagger. He is still somehow able to super-jump away.

This time, when Cisco goes on the date, he is himself, doesn't lie, is honest about being a tech guy more than a scientist but the passion with which he speaks about helping people with his new project hooks Kamilla's interest instantly. He also calls their orders ahead and says he just had a feeling about what Kamilla would like. This time the baristas speak of him with approval, saying he's not like most of the men in the city. This time, Cisco asks for a do-over and Kamilla agrees.

Barry is stunned when Nora tells him about how she traveled in time 53 times trying to fix the situation. He gives her the same speech Jay Garrick did in 302 using a broken coffee cup as a metaphor for time. He also tells her that no one can account for how things can be changed by a trip through time. This stuns Nora, who seems to have been told differently.

Sherloque is seen working on translating the time-code again

Nora goes back to 2049 and asks Thawne is he is sure he knows what he is doing. He angrily insists he is the only speedster who knows what they are doing before assuring Nora that if she follows his instructions, they can defeat Cicada, destroy his dagger and save her father.


Location

Iron Heights Prison - 2049


The Bottom Line

A decent enough filler episode, though Cisco's attempts at playing someone else to impress his date reek of the Idiot Ball and don't jibe with Cisco's usual empowered nerdiness. Still, the effects work is great though Legends of Tomorrow really did this storyline better twice with Here I Go Again and Legends of To-Meow-Meow.

The Flash Episode Guide: Season 5, Episode 12 - Memorabilia

For a summary of the episode guide layout & categories, click here.


Plot

When Sherloque suggests using a machine to allow Barry and Nora to enter into the mind of Cicada's adopted daughter Grace in a bid to bring her out of her coma, Nora panics, fearful her parents might discover her secrets. Using the machine on her own, she becomes trapped in Grace's mind, requiring that Barry and Iris go in after her. Meanwhile, in a bid to drag Cisco out of his depression and obsession with making a cure for metahuman powers, Ralph tricks Cisco into a night on the town.


Influences

Inception (people go inside another persons mind using technology), The Matrix (phones are used to communicate with the real world in the other reality) and the Nightmare on Elm Street movies (serial killer attacking people in a dream world, general feel of the dream Cicada stalking Nora scenes)


Goofs

The idea that Iris is making enough money off of add revenue for her blog to talk about hiring editors and photographers to start her own newspaper in this day and age will bring a hearty chuckle to every blog writer and newspaper employee in America.

It's also disturbing how cheerful Iris is regarding someone dying in a way that profits her.


Performances

Islie Hirvonen - who places Grace Gibbons - gives a really creepy performance as she explains to Nora that she's been listening and then turns angry as she springs the trap on the woman she thinks is playing nice to trick her into hurting her uncle.


Artistry

The cinematography in the dream sequences is top-notch and Grace's dreamworld becomes downright horrific when she turns upon Nora and her uncle arrives to protect her.


Flash Facts

The sweater Caitlin wears to go ice skating uses the same design as DC Bombshells' Killer Frost's costume.

Sherloque makes reference to using his Memory Machine to help the victims of The Summerholt Institute. In the reality of Smallville, The Summerbolt Institute was a neurological clinic that developed the mind manipulation technology later employed by LuthorCorp.

Sherloque also makes reference to using the Memory Machine to fight Jervis Tetch - The Mad Hatter Killer of Earth 221. Jervis Tetch is the real name of The Mad Hatter - one of Batman's more infamous rogues, who employs mind-control technology in various forms.

When they enter Nora's memory of The Flash Museum gift shop, there are two boys hitting each other with stuffed animals (a gorilla and a shark), pretending to be Gorilla Grodd and King Shark. It has been suggested that a later episode of Season 5 will feature a battle between King Shark and Gorilla Grodd.

We overhear a boisterous voice in the gift shop introducing himself as Dexter Myles and welcoming everyone to The Flash Museum. In the comics, Dexter Myles was an out-of-work, classically-trained Shakespearean actor, who helped The Flash stop a bank robbery in The Flash #138. When the Flash Museum was introduced into the comics two years later in The Flash #154, Barry Allen recommended Myles for the job of the museum's curator and tour guide.

Most of the merchandise we see in The Flash Museum gift shop is real world Flash swag.

The comic a young Nora is reading is The Flash #172. This was the second comic Cicada appeared in and the first one where The Flash fought him directly.

At one point, we can see a copy of the second printing of The Flash #1 from the Rebirth series on a comics rack over Barry's shoulder.

We also see a copy of The Flash #39 from the current Rebirth series. The cover declares that "Grodd is Back!" further foreshadowing Grodd's return later this eason.


Technobabble

In most coma patients, high traffic areas of brain activity go dormant and the low traffic areas spring to life. Unfortunately, Grace is not normal and her consciousness has isolated itself into one specific region of her brain - her long-term memories.

In order to wake Grace up, they will need to guide her consciousness to a neural nexus portal.

When traveling in pairs using the memory machine, it is possible for the partners to see one another's memories. There is no way to configure the machine to eliminate this issue.

The memory machine requires a transfer disc be connected to the patient's EEG to function.

According to Caitlin, an abnormal brain like Grace's might cause her brain to act defensively if it sensed an outside presence. When it detected Nora, it shifted its neural nexus pathways - effectively sealing the exits as a quarantine procedure.The brain also has synaptic defenses that naturally protect it from outside presences.

Caitlin is able to use the M.A.D 2.0 to complete the emergency beacon Sherloque wanted to install in the Memory Machine.  This allows her to "phone in" to the memory world at least before it starts smoking.

Caitlin and Sherloque determine that portals are hidden in perception gaps - things that you remember the way you want them to be, not the way they actually were.

The defense mechanisms of the brain are composed of synapses. Breaking the synapses in the false memory will reveal the real memory and the synaptic jolt will expose the portal.


Dialogue Triumphs

Nora: (dictating a letter to Reverse Flash) I want you to think about the biggest secret in your life. The one you keep from the people that you love, or even from yourself. I want you to imagine what would happen if that secret got out. Remember when you asked me that? I've been using all of your training. Studying my pulse, managing micro-expressions, limiting non-congruent gestures, destroying any piece of evidence. I don't know how much longer I can keep this up. And not just because of the risks. But because the closer I get to my parents, the more I feel like I'm hurting them.

Cisco: I think we're done here.
Ralph: One drink.
(Cisco hesitates.)
Ralph: I'm paying.
Cisco: One drink, but only because you never pay for anything ever and I'm really curious to see what Hell looks like frozen over.

Nora: Grace, how did you hear Orlin that night? You were in a coma.
Grace: I know. (whispering) But I've been listening...

(As Nora is pinned by the female Cicada in Grace's dream)
Grace: Maybe you don't have anyone who cares about you! But I have someone who cares about me, and I'm the only one who can help him!

Nora: (dictating a letter to Reverse Flash)  It's hard to keep a secret, but it's easier when you're reminded why you're doing it. I met someone who told me that she would do anything to protect her family. She helped me see that so would I. My parents can't know that you're helping me stop Cicada. There's too much at risk. And I'll do anything to protect them. Even lie.


Continuity

Nora never learned how to ice-skate.

Ralph's mom dated a Zamboni driver.

Sherloque claims there are no Zambonis on his Earth. When they want to clean the ice, everyone has to get down on their hands and knees with a squeegee.

Larry Blumenthal - a patent register who has an office across the hall from Ralph - died and his office is now for rent. Iris immediately starts making plans to use this as the base for a new newspaper.

There is a Forerunner Multiversal Delivery Service that can deliver things between worlds. They brought Sherloque his memory machine from Earth 221.

Ralph makes reference to the events of 423 and how Barry got his mind to take control of his body and throw out The Thinker.

Sherloque used to have a partner named Watsune, who traveled with him into many other people's minds. Their partnership ended when Sherloque discovered that Watsune was having an affair with Sherloque's fourth wife.

Killer Frost's favorite film directors are John Woo and John Hughes.

Cisco prefers the movies of John Ford and John Waters.

Ralph asks Cisco to come with him to investigate a lead on Cicada's location.

Nora goes into Grace's memories and finds her in a memory of the night she was orphaned after a meta killed both her parents during an ATM robbery.

Nora tells Grace that she once had to go to the CCPD headquarters by herself too.

Nora is able to get Grace to change where they are in her head by thinking of a different memory. In this case, she encourages Grace to think about what will happen once they get out of her head. This leads them into Grace's memory of her and her uncle planning a day together. Their plans were to go to the zoo, then get ice cream and then go to the fair.

Iris learns that the only name her newspaper is cleared to use legally is the Central City Citizen. She tries to avoid this because this was the name of the newspaper from which the 2024 article Iris wrote describing The Flash's disappearance came from.

Sherloque says that Watsune died after he tried to go into the Mad Hatter of Earth 221's head alone.

The mascot of Central City High is the Squirrel.

It turns out the Cicada Ralph's contact knows about is a terrible metal band called "Sickada."

Barry and Iris wind up in Nora's memories instead of Grace's when they use the Memory Machine together.

Grace notices that the kitchen in her memories looks exactly like the kitchen in her dollhouse.

The first memory Barry and Iris see is of Nora alone in the CCPD headquarters. Apparently she ran away from home and jumped a turnstile on the subway.

Barry ran away from home several times when he was 10, wanting to go to Iron Heights Prison and see his dad.

The second memory Barry and Iris enter is of Nora running off to The Flash Museum by herself, reading comics in the gift shop, before going to the Hall of Villains and looking at the Cicada display.

The Cicada display in the Hall of Villains reveals that Cicada reappeared in 2024 shortly after The Flash disappeared. This led to speculation that Cicada was immortal.

Cicada's death toll was 152 confirmed victims. This was more people than Zoom and The Red Death. It is said that after Cicada returned, people didn't quite view The Flash as highly as they had before.

In Nora's memory, Iris is unreasonably mean to her and says she is never coming to The Flash Museum again after breaking a Flash action figure Iris had which she assumed she stole and making Nora leave it behind.

Grace takes Nora into her last memory. Rather than being the fair grounds before she was injured, Nora is surprised to find herself in Grace's hospital room. It is here she discovers that Grace is aware that her uncle has become Cicada and that she approves of him killing metahumans, whom she sees as all bad because they killed her parents and hurt her and her uncle.

Grace is apparently able to hear her uncle in her coma and heard him talking to Dr. Ambres about his work and how he believed the new speedster, XS, was The Flash's daughter. This leads Grace to figure out who Nora is to turn her neural defenses against her.

Grace's neural defenses take the form of her uncle in his Cicada costume.

Nora's neural defenses take the form of the empty Reverse Flash costume in the Flash Museum.

Ralph reveals that the real reason he asked Cisco to go out to the bar with him was that he never really had friends to do stuff with when he was just Ralph Dibny and he thought Cisco needed a night off.

While talking with a cute bartender named Kamilla, Cisco has the revelation that if he could find two sisters, one metahuman, the other not, that would enable him to find the genome that controls metagenes.

When Nora's real memory of the day she ran away is revealed, we find that her toy broke on accident and Iris was more worried about her than angry. We also discover that Nora had no idea that her dad was The Flash and that Iris had only told her that her father was The Flash's biggest fan. Nora went to the museum because Iris had said the museum reminded her of Nora's dad and she wanted to try and remember him too.

When Nora tries to break Grace's idealized view of her last day with her uncle, the kitchen/dining room becomes darker and dingier.

When Nora tries to talk to Grace a second time and is attacked by Cicada again, this time Cicada appears to be a young woman in a hooded longcoat and mask. This suggests that Grace is seeing herself as an adult "hero" like her uncle. This may be foreshadowing that the second Cicada of 2024 is a grown up Grace Gibbons who inherits her uncle's metatech after his death.

Caitlin discovers a piece of dark-matter infused shrapnel inside Grace Gibbons' brain. She speculates this might have created a barrier that disrupted the Memory Machine.

Nora creates a sketch of the interior of Cicada's house based on what she saw in Grace's memory.

When Iris, Nora and Barry make it back to reality, they ask Nora why she was afraid to let Barry into her memories. Sherloque covers for her, saying that clearly she was embarrassed about her feelings about her mother as a child. Nora agrees that was it.

Barry tells Sherloque that Nora's defense mechanism was The Reverse Flash costume. This does not seem to surprise him.

Iris officially moves into the office across from Ralph.

Nora discovers that Iris has changed the timeline. In her future, the Central Citizen Citizen was founded in 2021. Now the historical record shows it was established in 2019.

Cisco got Camilla the bartender's phone number.

Cisco says he found a pair of siblings, one of whom was a meta and the other not. He says he almost has the metahuman cure finished.

Barry says he's in favor of using the metahuman cure on Cicada.


Untelevised Adventures

Sherloque makes reference to having helped the victims of the Summerholt Institute and fighting the Mad Hatter of Earth 221.


The Bottom Line

A solid episode where the creepy kid villain honestly is creepy and villainous. Great direction and set design also help to sell the story. A high point of the season so far.