The Flash S5 EP1: ‘Nora’

This season kicks off right where we left off; Nora having introduced herself, Team Flash kicks into investigation mode. Was she truly who she said she was…and was she really stuck in this time like she revealed?

The episode covers Cisco’s aftermath from breaking up with Gipsy, as well as hints at the side plot of Caitlin, who found out she’d been a metahuman since childhood, long before the particle accelerator explosion. Of course, between our quippy, young speedster who longs for some personal time with her parent…-…er, parents, and the simplistic reminder that Caitlin still exists…we have another baddie on the loose. What is Flash without their emotional build-ups and side handed, watered-down bad boys/girls/people/whatever they may identify as?
Nothing, really.
So Flash is out and about, sporting an oldie but a goodie from the storage room of Cisco; his season one uniform, which apparently shrank and bit (less bulky).
Nora warned that she’d just better keep back, follows anyway. Ah, the rebellious ways of teens. Previously she’d met with Barry at the CCPD, and began to annoy him with her presence. Though she does give us a fun nod to Happy Harbor, a fictional town in Rhode Island created in Young Justice. I squealed a bit, indeed.
You can guess with Nora trying to help…it was just daughter distracts daddy, and daddy gets pummeled. Oof, what’s new?
Nora just wants to be part of the family
You can tell, having the power of her dad, she wants to be like him! Or was it more?
Disappointment is always worse than anger…
Luckily, neither Barry nor Iris were disappointed in their future daughter…
We get to see bonding with Iris and Nora, though Nora uncooperative…it upsets Iris. Well Iris, you basically tempted her with revealing the future. Hasn’t Barry messed with the timeline enough for you to realize it ain’t a good thing?! Still, this moment just pushed us closer to seeing why Nora is there, and why she looks at her mother so normally, unlike her father.

As we grow further in and closer to the end, we see the same problem the CW has had for a LONG time, with Flash at least. The villains are ignored and sidelined for the complete purpose of making a dramatic-turned-uplifting moment for our heroes. Hm, sound slike a certain movie franchise I know…
*cough* The MCU *cough*

The villain, whose name a distraught Cisco doesn’t hesitate to make fun of then later “come up with”, Gridlock, makes his moves all too typical. Nora and Barry have continued discussions, and while a madman is running around, Nora is revealing that…she’s not stuck in this past. She’s here for her dad…who still goes missing all those years later…bringing it all back around the problem Barry came to so many seasons ago.
Beforehand we were told Nora accidentally came to the past, and through scans in the infamous STAR Labs, and a failed test to get her back using both her and Barry’s speed combined, they can’t find any trace of the speedforce inside Nora.
Well, ain’t she just her momma’s girl? She used a device to hide, and a portal ring from the future to get to the past…
Okay, I awed at this moment; it was cute enough. But the boring “stop the villain, happy family” subplot kinda hurt.
Gridlock hijacked a plane, and plans to crash it! The Flash, who gets his new suit via his comic-accurate ring that Nora happened to have on her, and XS speed to the rescue.
Oh yeah, Wally’s there too. But he’s not relevant anymore, right? You know, Kid Flash? The Flash’s right-hand man, the speedchild himself? Anyone?
Yeah, me neither…
Okay so, stopping a crashing plane? This looks like a job for Superman! Oh, wait…
THE FLASH! And XS too, guys; phasing the plane until it safely meets the ground is what needs to happen, that’s the plan! But…Nora doesn’t know how.
8inhales* DADDY-DAUGHTER BONDING!!!!
Cisco vibes the three speedsters onto the plane, and after knocking Gridlock out, they get to vibrating the molecules of the plane.
The Flash
Kid Flash
XS…well, she was under-performing. She didn’t have the training Barry did, how could she have without him? So, we get a familar speech, words of wisdom…Barry speaking with the words of Harrison Wells, Eobard Thawn…the words he had spoken to Barry to teach him so long ago. We even get a flashback to the words being spoken!
I liked that part
That was a cool throwback and felt appropriate

Of course, the day is saved, all that! We get to see Nora reveal a room inside a building the entire Team Flash group has lived in for years that NONE of them know about.
CW, you’re already getting on my nerves.
I cringe…
But, it’s a “lounge”, one Nora can stay in, and one Joe apparently already knew about.
There was so much going on, I forgot to mention, Caitlin, Cisco and Ralph (yeah, him) are a thing. Ralph is stupid and wiley through the episode, per the norm, but by the end, he figures he MAY have found a way to get KIller Frost back.
‘Sigh’ I miss when Killer Fross added a scary element to the show, tearing the team apart and seeing a change. Seeing a friend go, rogue and villain, maybe even in the future seeing a team up with Silver Banshee and Livewire!
BUT NO!
We have a schizophrenic gone wrong and turned pen pal…I loathe it. Like many things, the entirety of Caitlin’s struggles has become sidelined and unneeded.

So we have an episode full of fun, childish action and moments, some fun references, boring subplots, and actually some decent acting I was very pleased with. All in all, great epis-…oh, wait…mysterious villain cue!
You knew it was coming, I knew it, Trump knew it a week before
Gridlock, being taken away for his crimes, stopped by a mysterious figure! His transportation truck stopped, torn apart, and Gridlock and us viewers see the ominous and predictable man in black, and a mask of course!
The clicking of a Cicada…with flashesightning bolt because why the frick not?
Recruitment? Not quite…
Cleansing by attacking and brutally murdering this villain? YES!

So we have our baddie/anti-hero/rogue???
Um…okay
Cool
Thanks
D-Do it justice, I guess?
Oh, who am I kidding.