Hello, Citizens of GeekVibesNation! How are you all doing this December? Gearing up for the holidays? Spending time just being chill? Enjoying The Flash’s 100th Episode Special?
That’s right ladies and gents, the 100th episode spectacular of our favorite Speedster-themed CW TV show has OFFICIALLY come and gone and, not to spoil the whole thing before I spoil the whole thing, but it was fairly spectacular.
So, to catch everyone up on a bit of the basics. Team Flash has finally figured out who their Metahuman Jack the Ripper is: Orlin Dwyer, a tormented uncle whose only family – an orphaned niece named Grace – was injured and entered a coma when the S.T.A.R. Labs satellite (Sally) crashed on Central City just after Team Flash stopped Clifford DeVoe/The Thinker’s evil plan[i].
Orlin/Cicada was also injured when the satellite crashed, a shard of Sally’s dark matter-infused core sliced through his chest, leaving a gaping hole and his own metahuman abilities. He is now wielding the shard of core like it’s some sort of metahuman power-sapping Mjolnir (i.e., it steals metahuman powers and comes back to him like a magnet when thrown).
So, now that Team Flash has identified Orlin, they enter the ‘watch and formulate a plan’ stage.
Before we can complete that stage, however, some more background is needed:
- Caitlin Snow/Killer Frost has discovered that her powers were not, in fact, due to the S.T.A.R. Lab’s particle accelerator explosion waaaay back in Season 1 – which we kind of knew since Cisco Ramon/Vibe vibed a memory of her turning into Killer Frost well, well before the explosion occurred. Her powers were actually created by her father in his mad scientist-y attempt to stop the spread of ALS in both himself and Caitlin[ii]. Basically, in attempting to save his daughter, he gave her an evil-turned-good alter ego. He also gave one to himself, but his other personality – Icicle – is much less willing to cooperate than Killer and he is at large for the moment.
- Everyone’s favorite French Holmes knockoff, Sherloque, has been increasingly suspicious of Nora West-Allen/XS – Barry Allen/The Flash and Iris West-Allen’s daughter from the future. He doesn’t have any concrete proof that she is up to something nefarious, but there will be more on that soon.
- The doctor that is treating the comatose Grace knows full well what Orlin is doing and why – in fact, her own anti-metahuman rhetoric was in part the catalyst for Cicada’s murder spree[iii].
Alright, back to the present. Sherloque and Ralph Dibny/Elongated Man are tailing Orlin. After their efforts, the only place that Team Flash knows for certain they can get to him is the hospital where Gracie is, which he visits at the least once a day.
Brilliant idea. Let’s pick a fight around a building with a bunch of the sick and injured. *insert dramatic eyeroll*
Before Team Flash can take on Cicada, however, they have to disarm him. They figure out that the best solution is to develop some kind of magnetic force that can overcome Cicada’s connection to his dagger (remember, it comes back to him when he throws it). Unfortunately, S.T.A.R. Labs does not currently have all of the materials required to build such a device.
However, Team Flash has encountered all of the right materials, in the past. That’s right, we’re about to bust wide open those ridiculous Speedster time-travel laws! This is anarchy in the Speed Force! Psh, Time Wraiths? I don’t think they exist.
Also, by the way, this was all Nora’s idea, which she developed while reading her fancy journal. She also leaves the journal out in the open, an entirely too tempting of a target for Sherloque, but that will come back around in a minute.
So, the three objects they need to create a dark matter dagger magnet (DM2, as I’m going to call it) include: a piece of good ol’Savitar’s suit (before it vanishes from the timeline, of course); the Speed Force transmitter Zoom (the one he used to take Barry’s Speed Force); and, temporally located at the start of this whole show, dark matter from the actual S.T.A.R. Labs accelerator explosion.
That’s right, not one but THREE separate incidences of time travel. The Time Wraiths will eat well tonight!
Once they have collected all of the materials and assembled the DM2 as necessary, the plan is to then emplace the device at the hospital where it won’t be found for five years. Then, when Barry finally picks his fight with Cicada, he can activate the device, attract the dark matter dagger to the DM2, and fight Orlin without losing his metahuman powers.
Cisco and Caitlin nail down the dates Barry has to go back to — May 23, 2017; April 19, 2016; and December 11, 2013 – and The Flash and XS head back to the past to the tune of Huey Lewis and the News’ “Back in Time” (Ralph’s idea).
Meanwhile, Sherloque gets a hold of Nora’s journal. Unfortunately, it’s written in the same gibberish language that Barry was obsessively writing in after returning from the Speed Force[iv]. The good news is that Cisco actually translated some of the gibberish before, but he refuses to help Sherloque read Nora’s journal.
And then he leaves Sherloque alone in front of the computer that can run the translation algorithm.
Back to Barry and Nora’s excellent adventure. They make it successfully to the night Barry defeats Savitar, but almost get caught by Team Flash’s past selves. Then they almost get caught by a Time Wraith. Then Nora gets to watch her kick-kiester mother shoot Savitar without even blinking.
But Team DM2 makes it out with the piece of Savitar’s suit without doing any real damage to the timeline. The next piece to collect is Zoom’s transmitter. This part of the operation goes a bit sideways as Barry gets caught by Harry Wells – Sherloque’s iteration from Earth-2 – but he manages to play it off and get the transmitter without raising too much suspicion.
That is, until he gets caught by Zoom. So, one high-speed chase later, Nora and Barry escape with the transmitter. Unfortunately, while they are travelling through the Speed Force, Zoom follows them. He is taken captive by the Time Wraith, but not before Barry and Nora are flung rather forcefully out of the Speed Force, dropping the transmitter and breaking it.
Nora suggests that they enlist the help of Eobard Thawne/Reverse-Flash, which Barry adamantly refuses to do…that is, until he sees his past self lying unconscious in an alleyway. Turns out, this is the exact time that Barry had come back to ask for Eobard’s help previously. So, Barry decides to go ask Eobard for his help in repairing the transmitter.
Of course, Thawne – who is currently wearing the face of Harrison Wells; ikr, super confusing – has to be a huge pain about the whole situation. It only takes him about two seconds to figure out that Nora is Barry’s daughter (although he calls her Dawn, a reference from the comic books[v]) and he quickly deduces that he loses in the future since two iterations of Barry Allen have showed up from differing points in the future to ask for his help.
Present Barry offers Eobard a bargain: fix the transmitter and Thawne will be able to go home, back to the future. This isn’t super convincing to Eobard, but his interest it piqued when Nora explains that this is to help capture Cicada, aka Barry’s one failure as a superhero.
Also, Barry kind of threatens to blow the entire timeline to smithereens by introducing his present self to his past self (who is still unconscious like he was in the alleyway). So Eobard helps. Grumpily, but he helps.
(He also seems to be suspicious of Nora, which is pretty common with men who look like Wells at this point, but Eobard is actually from the future, so he actually has knowledge that Sherloque does not.)
With the transmitter fixed, the final step is to reach the moment that started it all: the dark matter explosion from S.T.A.R. Labs’ accelerator accident.
Oh, which, by the way, both of the DeVoes, Ronnie Raymond and Professor Stein pre-F.I.R.E.S.T.O.R.M., Barry and Iris, Caitlin, Cisco, and Eobard as Harrison Wells are all present for the explosion. Also, Gideon the future AI is in the Time Vault, so it’s a whole freakin’ who’s who of The Flash.
Team DM2 makes it into S.T.A.R. Labs and the Time Vault with almost no difficulty. There was a tense moment where Eobard almost found them, but a distraction from Cisco and Caitlin prevent him from actually doing so.
Barry and Nora make it into the Time Vault and request that Gideon channel some of the dark matter form the explosion into the incomplete DM2. Nora gets a bit too interested in the Reverse-Flash’s suit, which is sitting in the Time Vault. This will come back around in a minute.
The accelerator explodes on time, the DM2 is now complete and ready to be emplaced at the hospital for use in 5 years. The best place? Inside one of the concrete pillars.
Fast forward to the present, the rest of Team Flash has barely been able to get through their Huey and the News song before Team DM2 makes it back, mission successful. So everyone gears up and they head to the hospital where Cicada is currently visiting Grace.
Team Flash lures Cicada out, letting the DM2 do it’s work and attract his anti-metahuman dagger. It embeds itself into the concrete pillar, giving the Flash a chance to beat Cicada a bit before Cisco portals the dagger into outerspace.
Cue one of the biggest, dumbest mistakes in the history of all Flash mistakes…
Cisco sent the dagger into space. ONLY into space. Because Cicada’s willpower is so strong that he could LITERALLY DRAG THE DAGGER BACK FROM MILES ABOVE.
Guys.
Multiverse.
As in MULTIPLE UNIVERSES.
As in, a far better place to send an evil dagger with the properties of Mjolnir where it’s freaking Thor could never summon it back from.
*muffled angry shrieks*
…
*sigh*
Okay, I’m done.
So, Cicada calls the dagger back and defeats all of Team Flash in the blink of an eye, save for one: Caitlin/Killer Frost. Why? Because Caitlin’s power did not come from dark matter like that of everyone else, it came from her father’s crazy cryo-based experiments. So Killer beats back Cicada, at least long enough for Team Flash to get away and regroup.
The good news is, Team Flash seems to be getting better at managing major defeats as they already start to get pumped up for their next face-off with Cicada. No new plan is created, but the wheels are turning in the correct direction.
Also, Sherloque confronts Nora about her written-in-gibberish journal. She explains that it is a time language that she created to record information even if the timeline is wiped clean. Sherloque is not convinced, but since he has the translation algorithm, he pretends to let the matter drop…
…Nora, meanwhile, takes her journal to the Time Vault and has Gideon scan it’s pages, sending them to some temporarily unknown recipient. Nora then goes and visits the recipient herself, who is located in Iron Heights, 2049.
Yeah, it’s Eobard Thawne.
Yay.
Review & Thoughts
“Alright, these are the best of times. And, incidentally, they were also the worst of times.” – Cisco as they figure out which dates to send Barry and Nora back to
First of all, congratulations to the team behind The Flash on 100 episodes! Big round of applause for such an outstanding cast and crew; I am already looking forward to the 200th episode spectacular in about five years.
Think of all the villains THAT will have to include…
I’m really glad that The Flash has made it this far. It had a great start, great first seasons, and has yet to show even the barest of signs that it is going to crash and burn anytime soon. The writers have a solid grip on the story and the actors are really bringing their A-game when it comes to developing their characters.
This 100th episode in particular allowed the audience to really understand how far the show has come. Tom Cavanaugh – who directed this episode – in particular really drove home the idea that the show has grown an changed. He played not two but three different iterations of basically the same character: the almost devious Sherloque, the angsty father Harry Wells, and the supremely self-righteous Eobard Thawne. Even more iconic than the villain of each Flash season is which H. Wells is going to show up and save and/or ruin the day.
Overall it was an excellent 100th episode with just enough flashbacks (hahahahah flashbacks) to remind the audience of what was going on, but not so many or so bluntly as to bore anyone who has actually been keeping up with the show. Golly, flashback episodes have the potential of being the absolute worst.
Not really the worst, but you get the idea.
The Cicada storyline is progressing excellently in my opinion, setting aside the entirely avoidable situation that Team Flash now finds themselves in. I’m greatly interested to see how or if the Cicada storyline merges with the Nora-Reverse Flash arc.
Now, let’s get to the meat of the problem: who is Nora West-Allen? Honestly, I’m not completely convinced that she is who she says she is at this point. Between the two smartest men in the room – Eobard and Sherloque – and their suspicions as to her purpose and identity (remember, Eobard mis-named her as Dawn), is she really even Barry and Iris’ daughter?
Now, this doesn’t preclude her from being in the West-Allen family (google “the flash family tree” and you’ll see why) but that does not necessarily make her an immediate family member. So, then, who is she exactly?
Also, why is she in cahoots with Eobard of the future? To answer this question, I need like, two more pieces of information, Right now the possibilities range from there some kind of people/information hostage situation – maybe Eobard actually has future Barry, who went missing decades before – or maybe she was manipulated by Eobard into believing that she’s a West-Allen but, actually, she isn’t?
I have no idea, we’ll just have to wait until The Flash returns on January 15, 2019.
[i] Episode 423, “We Are the Flash”; Clifford DeVoe/The Thinker began the Enlightenment to dumb the world’s entire population down. In a last ditch effort to extract revenge, he sent the S.T.A.R. Labs satellite, Sally, hurdling towards Central City. Barry stopped it with the help of Nora, but chunks of the satellite still fell, causing injuries and creating more metahumans.
[ii] Episode 506, “The Icicle Cometh”
[iii] Episode 507, “O Come, All Ye Thankful”
[iv] Episode 401, “The Flash Reborn”; Barry returns from being inside the Speed Force prison he created for Savitar.
[v] In the comics, Barry and Iris had a set of twins, Dawn and Don, who became Speedster superheroes.
GVN’s resident writer on The Flash and other CW TV shows and cat appreciator. Ang rhymes with ‘sang’!
