[vc_row][vc_column][vc_single_image image=”9348″ img_size=”900×500″ alignment=”center”][vc_column_text]Hello, Citizens of GeekVibesNation! Well, all of our favorite CW superhero shows have finally had their season premieres and its safe to say that the 2018-19 season is going to be a good one.
All eyes should be especially on The Flash which is entering it’s fifth season, arguably one of the most important seasons of a TV show’s run. Many really good series don’t even make it this far and, although it is difficult to see The Flash being cancelled any time soon – the CW doesn’t seem to have the same propensity for shooting itself in the foot like Fox or SyFy channel – Season 5 is still a pivotal season for a TV show.
The first season is the excitement, the second is settling in, the third is where the show finds it’s balance, the fourth is where the show breaks it’s balance by being way too experimental, and the fifth is where the show finally recovers from the fourth and sets the tone for the seasons to come. Or it’s the show’s peak and final season, depending on just how terrible the fourth season was.
This of course is not a concrete overview of how every TV show’s seasons are played out, but it is a pattern I’ve observed over the years.
So, how is The Flash Season 5 holding up? Pretty darned well, if you ask me. We’re only on episode two but I’m feeling right at home with the story and where it is going.
Allow me to summarize:
When last we saw Gridlock, our temporally premature and kinetic-energy wielding metahuman baddie, he was being escorted to Iron Heights’ metahuman wing in a massive police convoy. That convoy was then attacked by a masked man with a mijonir-like lightning bolt weapon.
To put it mildly, Gridlock was murdered and the guy who did it made it look easy by using his lightning bolt to sap Gridlock’s metahuman powers and then stab him and mutter something about everyone needing to die.
Fast forward to the next day, Team Flash is adjusting to the addition of Barry Allen/The Flash and Iris West-Allen’s daughter from the future, Nora West-Allen/XS. This dynamic is especially difficult to manage when Barry reveals that – per future information from Eobard Thawne/Reverse Flash and Nora – he disappears in the future and never returns.
Iris rallies the team together, determined to see that future not come to fruition. On top of the whole Barry-goes-missing bombshell, Iris is also having to face Nora’s incessant desire to hang out with her dad, Barry, and shunning her mother for no apparent reason.
The rest of Team Flash – namely Cisco Ramon/Vibe, Caitlin Snow/nee Killer Frost, and Ralph Dibny/Elongated Man – have other, pressing problems to deal with, namely the discovery that Caitlin’s dad’s death certificate was faked. Ralph asks Cisco to use his vibe powers to uncover more information about the certificate but Cisco is still moping about his recent breakup with Cynthia/Gypsy and refuses to use his vibe powers.
Between Ralph’s concern over his friend’s state and Caitlin’s ardent desire to distract them from her dad’s death certificate, the two plot a course to snap Cisco out of his funk. A course, Cisco is not very happy about, but has little choice in the matter.
Meanwhile, there is something rotten in Central City. An arms dealer’s very illicit warehouse is broken into by a super-powered metahuman ex-con lady named Vanessa Jansen/Block. She promptly demands weapons, and when the arms dealer – one of the notorious Moretti brothers – refuses to give her said weapons, she traps him inside some kind of cube and appears to crush him…
…and, yup, she totally crushed him. Barry – and Nora, CSI Intern of the Future – arrive at the crime scene the next day to find a neatly compacted cube of illegal arms dealer.
The. Horror. *shivers*
At the same crime scene, Iris visits CCPD Captain Singh and learns of the fact that Gridlock was murdered and that CCPD has no idea who did it or why.This leads Iris to borrow Barry’s crime lab – and crime computer – to watch bodycam footage from the scene of Gridlock’s murder. She uncovers specifically the strange, wheezing-type sound that the murderer makes, which will come back around in a moment.
Barry and Nora eventually track down a suspect: Jansen. The problem? The remaining Moretti brother is out for blood and finds her first.
Team Flash arrives on scene just in time to prevent a bloodbath, but Nora rushes in to take down the metahuman. Jansen traps her within a solidified cube of air – so dense even Speedsters can’t vibrate out of it – and flings the block halfway across Central City, forcing Barry to save her and let Jansen get away.
So Barry decides to make Nora start Speedster Training from the beginning: algebra.
(Who says you’ll never use algebra in your day-to-day life? You just have to somehow inherit access to the Speed Force and have a desire to use it for good! Also, time travelling to meet your long-missing father and totally playing fast and loose with the laws of Speedsters is also recommended, though not required.)
On the other side of Team Flash, Ralph and Caitlin are having no luck breaking Cisco out of his post-heartbreak funk; in fact, they are almost making it worse. Despite this, Cisco finally agrees to vibe Caitlin’s dad’s death certificate and discovers that it was actually Caitlin’s mom – the real Ice Queen, if we’re being honest here – who wrote it.
The rest of Team Flash finally tracks down Block once again. This time, Nora is much more patient, but that does not stop Jansen from trapping Barry in a block and forcing Nora to problem-solve. She does this well, eventually freeing her dad, but then comes our favorite anti-metahuman wildcard: weird wheezy mask guy with a mjionir-esque lightning bolt and a really big chip on his shoulder.
Over the span of so few sminutes, Mask Guy stabs Jansen/Block, Barry is released, and Cisco and Ralph show up to help a bit too late. Barry makes Nora take Jansen to the hospital – probably the only thing that saved everybody – and he, Ralph, and Cisco square off against Mask Guy.
He promptly beats their collective butts.
Rendered powerless by Mask Guy’s lightning bolt and then pummeled, Team Flash is on a major losing streak until Nora shows back up. She sees Barry about to be stabbed, and yells “Dad!” making Mask Guy weirdly back off and vanish into the night.
Back at base/S.T.A.R. Labs, Team Flash is having a bit of difficulty finding any information on their new baddie. The only lead they have is the strange wheezing sound he makes that Iris picked up on from Gridlock’s murder. Mask Guy sounds almost like a…
Wait for it…
Wait for it…
Cicada.
Review & Theories
“Yes! I get to take down my first baddie!” – Nora, being awfully excited about crime; also, isn’t she supposed to be Central City’s resident baddie taker downer in the future?
Okay, so on the Lightning Bolt Scale of Awesomeness, I think I’ll give this episode a solid 3 out of 5. It’s a solid tail to the season introduction and gets to the point of establishing the bad guy for this season quite quickly.
So far I do like Cicada as a villain; firstly because his name is Cicada and real cicadas are evil and noisy so that’s a very fitting name. Secondly, after Season Four and the whole Clifford DeVoe/Thinker plot, I’m looking forward to a less cerebral enemy. I like bad guys that can straight up beat the Flash without even thinking about it.
I’m a bit underwhelmed with the overall visage of Cicada; I feel like his evilness, while present, is a little understated, but we’ll see how his story progresses over the next few episodes. He is already presenting some depth of character – why did he not kill Barry when Nora arrived? – so I have hope.
For the other part of Team Flash, namely the Caitlin’s dad debacle, I’m extremely interested to see where this is going and how it will eventually tie into the overall plot of Season 5. Presumably, this will all lead to Caitlin regaining Killer Frost; perhaps, if her father is still alive, he could be the one to help her get her powers back?
Dumb Question: couldn’t they have used handwriting analysis to figure out that it was Caitlin’s mom who wrote the death certificate? I know she is a genius and can probably manipulate her handwriting to a degree, but, it seems like it would have been easier to throw the certificate in the computer and let it find a match.
Anyway, do you guys have any theories or hypothesis as to where this season is heading? Leave a comment down below or on any of GVN’s social media pages![/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]
GVN’s resident writer on The Flash and other CW TV shows and cat appreciator. Ang rhymes with ‘sang’!
