This week on The Flash season 5, King Shark and Gorilla Grodd both returned for a big old fight. They’re both cool characters, but the episode spent a lot of time on set up, science mumbo jumbo and upsetting moral disagreements on Team Flash.
The episode opened with Cisco Ramon announcing he had a meta cure ready. But, they needed to test it on a willing meta. Barry Allen suggested they ask King Shark. But, once they were at ARGUS, King Shark went out of control and almost killed Cisco. Barry gave him the cure against his will to stop him.
Cisco and Caitlin Snow were angry at Barry. They had both emphasized that they wanted to respect the bodily autonomy of metas. Barry was apologetic but not nearly enough. And, of course, by the end of the episode, Cisco and Caitlin’s anger was completely mild. I don’t know why The Flash set up a huge moral quandary, only to turn it into an ‘aw shucks’ disagreement where no one was able to hold onto their convictions.
It turned out that Gorilla Grodd had orchestrated King Shark’s episode as a distraction to steal tech from ARGUS. He could take over the entire city. King Shark, who had reverted back to being the human Shay Lamden, realized that only he could stop it. Because Grodd could only control human minds, Shay volunteered to have the cure reversed so he could become King Shark and fight Grodd.
The basic plot mechanics of the episode were cool. But, the fight between Barry, Cisco and Caitlin brought it down. There are too many plots about Barry basically seeing himself as a God. They always brush over his God complex in the end and make the show less watchable.
The episode concluded with Barry suggesting they ask Cicada if he wants the cure. In a confusing turn, this was presented as Barry’s idea. Wasn’t that always the plan? Or was it supposed to be implied that Cisco and Caitin’s first assertion that they only give it to voluntary metas didn’t apply to Cicada?
Check out my review of last week’s episode of The Flash.
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