The Flash S05E10 Review: White Bumblebee

The Flash, Season 5, Episode 10: The Flash and the Furious

We've got episodes from the CW shows returning since last week, but, y'know, as with everything else, I'm still trying my best to play catch-up. This episode of the Flash is... it's an interesting episode with a pretty solid set of revelations, but the episode itself doesn't feel particularly strong. Don't get me wrong, though -- I get what the episode's trying to tell me, but at the same time it's all bogged down with so much simple arguments from all sides of this whole X-Men style superhero power ethics debate that it ends up feeling like a particularly childish and over-melodramatic episode, even by Flash's standards. I don't know. Maybe it's because I've had a break from CW shows for a while during the winter break, but this isn't an episode I feel was particularly solid.

Let's talk about the parts that I think was done well -- Weather Witch. Introduced as a one-off villain in the pre-break part of this season, it turns out that she is feeling a whole ton of remorse over all of the harm she's done, particularly when Nora describes in loving detail how deadly weaponized lightning strikes are in front of the court. Moreover, you can really feel the conflict as she is being pulled on all sides -- a new villain, Silver Ghost, tries to basically recruit her into a new incarnation of the Rogues, while she herself is feeling a lot of remorse and just wants to do her time. Meanwhile, her attempts to turn herself in ends up with XS handing her to the police... and I totally buy that this frustrated young woman ends up following Silver Ghost when she does break her out and bring her along to steal a prototype ARGUS supercar, implied to be a prototype Batmobile. One that also happens to be a Cheverolet Camaro, and has a menu run by emojis, a hilarious little detail I loved.

Also a great part of this episode? Cecile. She doesn't have a lot of scenes in this episode, but the usage of her empath powers to realize that Weather Witch is actually genuinely remorseful, and might actually deserve a lighter sentence, is a pretty powerful bit, and is a very powerful counterpoint to Nora's far more ballistic POV.

The Flash is taken out by some convenient constant-vibration blast from Silver Ghost's technology-manipulation powers, and with both Ralph and Joe also calling in sick respectively, the cast is pared down to its B-team. And it's... well, it's not the best outing, I feel. Nora Allen has always been a bit of a brat, and with the revelation that she's at least in contact with Eobard Thawne, with the scenes being particularly ambiguous on how deep their partnership lasts, she's in a particularly bad headspace. I just feel that the execution ends up causing her to feel a bit too bratty. It makes sense, but the execution isn't particularly as well-done as it could've been.

The scenes between Nora and Eobard are pretty interesting, but the insistence of the show to keep Nora's backstory and intentions mostly vague leave us with the unfortunate fact that even though he's supposed to be the enigmatic plot device, Future!Eobard ends up coming off as a better-written character than Nora in this episode. Between his rant about how he wanted to be Flash, to him (maybe) earnestly begging for a second chance, Eobard Thawne is portrayed amazingly well, and honestly, it definitely could go either way as to whether Eobard is actually telling the truth or not on his repentance. We also get the revelation that Eobard has like 50 minutes left to live, and Nora's been zipping back and forth while time-travelling to this countdown.

It's just that... I dunno. Nora's been pretty inconsistently written, sort of like how her dad was in previous seasons. Her character development just ends up being far more severe than her father's, though, going from happy hero to "NO ONE CAN CHANGE" to giving everyone a second chance in the space of thirty minutes just because of a pep talk from her dad. I guess this ties into the whole 'excess' thing, but I really felt like this could've definitely either been toned down a bit to feel more realistic, or actually given room to breathe.

The B-plot this time around is Caitlin and Cisco's argument about the notion of a cure for metahumans, which is a pretty X-Men storyline. That's not the problem, though -- the problem is, again, the over melodramatic fashion that everything takes place. It's like the script writers had a bunch of arguments for both sides of a metahuman cure, and basically had the two actors read them, and then resolve it into "we can make a cure, as long as we give people a choice" bit at the end. Honestly, Carlos Valdez and Danielle Panabaker have great enough acting chops and chemistry to make the scenes work, but I feel like this is a conflict that really feels shoehorned and blown out of proportion. Considering how the characters have been for the past five seasons, this just feels like a weirdly bizarre avenue for them to explore -- everyone over-reacts so much, with Caitlin jumping straight into the "CURE IS BAD WE CAN ACCEPT OUR POWERS" bandwagon, being super-protective of her newfound split-personality-buddy, while Cisco is pretty bizarrely in the "ALL OR NOTHING" mentality, just because the episode calls for a conflict, and they have to resolve said conflicts at the end. Honestly, both Cisco and Caitlin's reasoning for wanting a cure and not wanting a cure are very, very solid. It's the execution that makes it feel pretty bland.

Sherloque, meanwhile, continues his investigation to Nora's little code book, and finds out that even though he has access to Gideon's files, they're all wiped permanently by Nora. Meanwhile, Barry finds that Mick Rory's novel is actually to his tastes, which is a nice bit of cross-show pollination I love. Silver Ghost, meanwhile, is another pretty bland villain-of-the-week.

Overall, an episode that honestly could've been pretty great if the script and direction had made it feel less like a wangst-fest, and more of an introspective episode for the three main characters involved.

DC Easter Eggs Corner:

• Silver Ghost is loosely based on a gender-flipped version of Silver Ghost (Raphael Van Zandt) from the comics. In the comics, the Silver Ghost is a minor villain of the Freedom Fighters of Earth-X, who is a criminal boss with the ability to transmute objects into silver.
• The super-car that Silver Ghost and Weather Witch steal is noted to be a high-tech prototype from Wayne Enterprises. That, and the plethora of gadgets stuffed into it implies that this is a prototype version of the Batmobile in all but name. (I somehow can't see Batwoman or Batman riding around in a Camaro, mind you)
• Heat Wave's romance novel made its debut recently in Legends of Tomorrow's episodes.