Comic Books

The Flash Season 5 Review: 5.17: Time Bomb

This week The Flash floundered with the weakest episode of the season so far. As often happens, the later episodes are struggling with cumbersome plot mechanics that aren’t all that interesting.

Last week, an adult Grace Gibbons from the future showed up as the new Cicada. In this episode her uncle Orlin Dwyer tried to convince her that he was wrong in his mission and that what happened to her parents was an accident. But, Grace killed him. Cicada was already not an interesting character and adding confusing additional details hasn’t helped.

Meanwhile, Nora West-Allen was feeling betrayed by Eobard Thawne. It is absolutely baffling that she’s still at all surprised. She learned so long ago that Eobard previously set out just to ruin Barry Allen’s life. She should’ve realized her mistake and come clean long ago.

At the end of the episode, the team finally found out she was working with Eobard, thanks to Sherloque Wells’ investigating. Nora told them, “I wanted to tell you… I tried to tell you.” The idea that she just wasn’t able to come clean about partnering with a terrifying villain is hard to buy. But, Barry’s choice to lock her up then walk away without talking it out further was still hard to watch.

In a subplot that didn’t match the tone of the episode at all, Cisco Ramon became official with his new girlfriend Kamilla. Even by The Flash standards, that relationship was rushed. Ralph Dibny pushed Cisco to introduce her to their friend group and even got Iris West-Allen to hire her at her newspaper. This all built up to a flat, on-the-nose monologue from Cisco about protecting Kamilla from their world. At this point the cat is out of the bag about superpowered serial killers. That’s a problem everyone in Central City deals with.

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