The Flash S05E14 Review: XSive Physics Breaking

The Flash, Season 5, Episode 14: Cause and XS

It's a very Nora-centric episode in that, well, Barry quite literally gets written out of the episode while Nora has to deal with the crisis basically single-handedly. This episode... honestly feels more like a gimmick episode than anything, and it's like we are obligated to have one of these every season or something? I really wished I could say that I really enjoyed this episode, but... there were way too many genuine moments of confusion in the story that made me stop short of thinking of this episode as anything beyond 'nice concept, messy execution'. The easiest thing to compare this to is an episode from Legends of Tomorrow's last season, "Here I Go Again".


I don't think I have a problem all that much with the spotlight being on Nora. I know I have complained about Nora before, but that's mostly because they keep drip-feeding us this character development that honestly ends up making Nora feel more dense than anything. And apparently, throughout this episode, Nora has to reverse time 52 times to attempt to stop a crisis from happening. And we get to see a couple of the timelines that Nora has to go through during Barry's "I will be gone for one hour, what could go wrong, right?"

Basically, in this fateful one hour is when Cicada decides to make his move, apparently having investigated Iris after their meeting in the previous episode (which... actually is kind of smart of Cicada and kind of stupid for the rest of the cast for not realizing this) and going off to kidnap Iris in order to draw out the superheroes. When our heroes show up to help, Cicada launches his dagger like a boomerang and it stabs Killer Frost in the back. In her shock, Nora speeds up and ends up reversing time, but in this alternate timeline, when Nora forces Iris to stay in STAR labs, it's an investigating Sherloque that gets captured, and now it's a teleporting Vibe that gets stabbed and killed. In another timeline we see where everyone is forced to stay in STAR Labs, it's Cecile that gets captured and killed.

And, sure, we get the additional caveats that Nora can't rewind time back any further than briefly after Barry disappeared into the Speed Force because of handwaved reasons. Sure. She also can't access the Speed Force, which... sure, also fair.

But honestly, this episode is so full of random weird nonsense that I am genuinely baffled that Nora fucked it up so many times. Like, sure, maybe she gets surprised once, twice, three or five times, but you'd think at turn ten or eleven she would just try to stop pretending everything is fine and hunky-dory and just try to explain the time loop to the STAR Labs crew and not wait until poor, poor Cisco ends up vibe-ing 51 alternate universe versions of him who gets stood up at that date. Honestly, the fact that apparently everything seems to hinge on Cicada's stupid boomeranging dagger really made it kind of hard for me to swallow that, really? Nora with her super-speed can't properly watch the arc of the weapon and just push people out of the way? It's not like the Legends of Tomorrow episode where the ultimate threat is that the time ship that everyone is in will explode at a set point in time, and Zari has to figure out what is causing the time ship to blow. It's not like it's rocket science -- at this point, Cicada is just a dude throwing a magic dagger! Or, y'know, maybe bring Iris with her little kitchen knife, that seemed like it did quite a bit against Cicada. Also, isn't Killer Frost, like, immune to Cicada's dark-matter-sapping dagger or something? It's been some time since I watched that episode, but isn't that a plot point?

And the way that everyone eventually beats Cicada is... getting Cicada out of the building, having everyone rush Cicada, and then Nora rewinds time and... yeah, I'm not really trying to make sense of the actual physics of this show, but just how this ends up with Cicada running into his own dagger is something that I just don't really get. Honestly, a small part of this is caused by me being just annoyed at how the show oscillates and alternates on whether Cicada is a serial killer with a power-dampening dagger or a god-like being that can escape any time he wants to. It's kind of annoying.

I mean, the episode does have its charming moments. I do appreciate Nora getting the screentime, and she is the type of person to impulsively try and cover up her own mistakes. And seeing poor, poor Cisco trying so hard to masquerade as 'science businessman' to try and woo Kamilla Huang offers some genuine laughs. Also appreciate that we're actually using Cisco as the person to figure out the alternate futures that did not happen, the same way that he did in the first season. At least Cisco finally gets his date by naturally being himself, in true sitcom style.

Anyway... ultimately a throwaway filler episode, although Nora apparently updated his journal enough during his 52 time-travel fuck-ups that Sherloque has enough to work with to decode her entire journal. It's... it's progress on that part, I guess? Eobard seems to be helping Nora stop Cicada for... for some reason, but I honestly don't really even buy that Eobard might be contributing anything positive for the good guys at all. Nora still seems to implicitly trust the man despite him suddenly screaming about sticking to the plan, so... I dunno. Nora's just very dense, I guess.

One small little detail I'll say before I end this review? Apparently Jitters has drinks named after Zoom and Cicada. And... in-universe that has to be insanely insensitive, isn't it, since those super-villains are respectively a terrorist and a serial killer respectively. That's like naming a drink in real life "Osama bin Latte" or something. I dunno. That just seems like a weird thing to me.