Title: The Flash: “News Flash” Review
Release Date: October 30th, 2018
Network: The CW
Genre: Superhero, Drama, Action
The Flash has given us some answers on some of season five’s biggest questions.
It was finally revealed that Nora hates her mother because sometime in the future, Iris implants a power-damping chip in her daughter. This, in turn, caused Nora to not to discover her abilities until six months before she arrived in 2018.
There’s a lot to go through with this. First, it’s fairly obvious to why Iris decided to keep this secret from Nora. She doesn’t want her to end up like Barry (who is missing and presumed dead in the future). From Nora’s perspective, it makes sense too. It was a huge betrayal of trust that may have even cost people lives in the future.
I have to admit, I was pleasantly surprised by this twist. I assumed that her distant relationship with Iris would be Barry related but to now see that Nora just started using her powers a few months ago, all the day one speedster lessons make more sense.
The scene with Candice Patton and Jessica Parker Kennedy near the end was especially heartbreaking. You really felt like their relationship had just been broken and neither side was willing to budge.
What remains to be seen is what (or who) propelled XS to go back in time. As Sherloque Wells deduced last week, it is more likely that somebody put Nora on the path to her version of Flashpoint. We also know that Iris wasn’t the person who told Nora about her abilities. With all of the callbacks to season one and the importance of the Crisis event, I would have to guess that we may see the latest version of Eobard Thawne appear on The Flash sooner rather than later.
Other than the Nora/Iris drama, we also had to deal with our bad guy of the week, Spencer Young AKA Spin. She uses her blog as a way to hypnotize the citizens of Central City into committing crimes, creating new stories for her to break. We saw this multiple times throughout the episode at the CCPD softball game, the fire, and the football stadium. Sidenote, how is Barry so bad at sports? He can literally slow down time.
Unlike Block and Gridlock, I found Spin to be a fun character to watch. Her powers are certainly modernized to fit our social media culture and it fit nicely in the episode. Yes, they are very similar to Kilgore’s powers in The Flash season four but I believe it was handled much better here.
At the end of season four, Barry (with the help of Nora) destroyed DeVoe’s final dark matter satellite. When it exploded, shards of it spread out across Central City, creating new Meta-Tech and possibly even new Meta-Humans. This is how Spin was able to use her cell phone to control people. Like the Particle Accelerator and Flashpoint, it seems that this will be the way to introduce metas this season.
Meta-Tech is a concept that I didn’t know I wanted until now. It’s a great idea to give people temporary abilities and tie us into Cicada.
We learned so much about Cicada in this episode. He isn’t David Hersh in this universe due to Nora’s meddling of the timeline, causing the satellite to break in a new trajectory. He’s using the, what I would like to call, Darth Vader respiratory mask for two reasons. To cover up his true identity and for breathing problems. It looks like the lightning bolt shaped dagger is a shard from the satellite and it actually hit Cicada in the torso, binding the two together. It would also explain the Mjolnir-like dagger and how it works.
Sherloque Wells and Ralph had a nice secondary arc as well. To me, it looked like Tom Cavanagh scaled it back a bit with his heavy accent, which was a nice touch. Again, I have to applaud Hartley Sawyer’s Ralph Dibny. In season four, the character was practically a yo-yo. He would develop into a brave hero one moment and regress into a melodramatic comedy act the next. Season five has done wonders for Dibny by putting him in certain situations. Yeah, he’ll still have some comedy segments like the convenience store robbery but he’ll come back with mature moments such as giving Caitlin advice on her father’s presumed death and showing Sherloque up on his detective skills.
Like Arrow, I’m starting to think that The Flash is beginning to learn their lesson with too many characters on screen at a time. After a Vibe filled episode last week, it was refreshing to keep Cisco out of the action this episode. As long as they continue to deliver with these exciting plots and heart-filled character moments, we shouldn’t be worried too much about the quality of the series.
Verdict: “News Flash” felt like a classic season one episode. Great comedic timing, compelling drama, and some really interesting mysteries to invest in had me glued to the screen throughout. That, along with fantastic performances from the main cast and a fun villain, once again gives me hope that season five will be the return to form for The Flash.
What were your thoughts on this episode of The Flash? Let us know in the comments below!
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