Comic Books

The Flash Season 5 Review: 5.16: Failure is an Orphan

This week’s episode of The Flash involved a lot of everyone assuring Barry Allen he’s a great, inspiring person. This genre of episode is pretty much an automatic pass for me.

The main conflict of the episode was Barry trying to think of the right thing to say to Cicada to convince him to take the cure. This meant that actual action in the episode was sparse. Only the scene when Killer Frost lured him into one spot and then breached away really felt exciting. In a real anticlimax, he removed his mask and spoke to him “father to father.” I appreciate the parallel of Barry and Cicada both being men who have absolutely no chill even though they’ve only been fathers for a few months. Neither of them has ever changed a diaper.  After their heart-to-heart, Cicada agreed to take the cure.

But, in the very end, a new version of Cicada appeared. This one seemed even more dangerous. She revealed herself to be Grace Gibbons, Cicada’s niece. In typical The Flash fashion, this big reveal fell flat.

Nora West-Allen was nervous this episode because she knew that Barry’s final confrontation with Cicada was approaching. She especially worried because Eobard Thawne showed her the timeline was now in flux. In the best scene of the episode, Sherloque Wells and Cisco Ramon encouraged Barry and Iris West-Allen to keep Nora busy. You can always count on Tom Cavanagh and Carlos Valdes to deliver a funny scene.

Countering Nora’s focus on the mission, Iris desperately wanted to spend more time with her. She was obsessed with finishing off a comically large list of things she wanted to do as a family. Scenes with the West-Allen family are always endearing, but it gets a little silly how much Iris desperately needs to spend time with her adult daughter from the future.

Also check out my review of last week’s episode of The Flash.

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