The Flash S05E15 Review: Let Them Fight

The Flash, Season 5, Episode 15: Gorilla Grodd vs. King Shark

Yeah, sorry about superhero TV reviews slowing down. Things have been kind of... I don't know. They just don't really grab me to review them the way they used to, I guess, even when I watch them pretty regularly.

This particular episode was pretty great, though! Sure, as expected, the titular battle between Grodd and King Shark doesn't last that long, probably lasting... oh, a minute or so, I want to say? But it's a pretty badass, well-animated minute, and the story that ends up being the framework for this mini kaiju fight is a pretty decent one, albeit one that honestly comes at a bizarre place in the framework of a greater season.

After the brief cold open that teases the climax (which was hardly necessary), we get the huge conflict of the episode, which was the need to test the metahuman cure on an actual metahuman. It's honestly quite bizarre how gung-ho everyone has been on using the cure on Cicada over the past couple of episodes, and now they're in full X-Men ethics mode as Cisco and Caitlin were very, very angry multiple times in the episode when Barry zips in and uses the cure on King Shark as he was about to eat Cisco. The sentiment of respecting consent is a great one, and a very good one for a superhero show to explore. The actual situation, though, just makes Cisco sound stupid.

Anyway, our heroes ended up choosing King Shark, who's in ARGUS with a fun little guest star by Lyla Michaels. King Shark's been communicating a lot, with the help of his Earth-1 doppelganger's wife, Tanya Lamden, who's developed a way to communicate with King Shark. He goes wild, though, just as they are about to ask him whether he wants to be cured, and while they blame this on the animal part of King Shark's brain, after Barry forcibly injects the cure and they do a little science technobabble, they realize something else is influencing King Shark. It's Grodd, who uses King Shark as a distraction so he could escape from ARGUS -- having had taken the one-second window during Thinker's Enlightenment to implant instructions to an ARGUS guard.

Anyway, while all of this is going on, we get the aforementioned argument between Cisco and Barry, while the human version of Shay Lamden is insistent that he be allowed to atone for all the crimes he's done as King Shark. Oh, and Sherloque talks to Tanya and basically tells her to pursue love, as odd as it might probably be to chase after an alternate-earth doppelganger.

A mind-controlled Cisco punch later, Grodd shows up at STAR labs and takes the mental-enhancing crown, planning to use it on the entire city to make them all his slaves. It's... it's definitely an actual improvement in the CGI model they use for Grodd that they're able to make him look so expressive while still looking convincingly like a gorilla. With Flash and XS taken out quickly in a fight against Grodd, Shay Lamden decides to be turned back into King Shark, even at the cost of the cure never working on him ever again. It's a fun, if simple, Tarzan/Swamp Thing style story where he really, really wants to protect his love, and he embraces the literal beast within as Cisco uses some comic book science technobabble to turn him into a shark monster... and we have the kaiju fight!

And it's pretty great, as short as it was. We get some slow-motion smashing, we get a pretty cool bit of Grodd being thrown down a parking tower, we get that whole sequence of King Shark getting tied onto a crane by Grodd. Flash and XS use some technobabble to jump-start a comatose King Shark -- I know the shark's ampullae of Lorenzini don't actually work like that -- and we get a lightning-charged King Shark whacking Grodd and knocking him out, ending with a "long live the king" one-liner from the Flash.

In an... interesting case of odd superhero ethics, apparently our heroes have a huge problem at Barry using the cure on King Shark without consent, but have no problem of Lyla putting Grodd in a medically-induced coma to stop his brain cells from growing stronger? Meanwhile, King Shark is back in shark monster form, but is a lot more talkative than before, happy to be able to protect Tanya. This whole storyline ends with Team Flash deciding to offer the cure to Cicada first, which can only end well.

The B-plot is... the return of Joe West! After his actor was injured and he sat out the vast majority of this season, he has finally returned, with the justification that his character also had to recover from the wounds inflicted by Cicada, apparently going off to Tibet to heal with Wally. He ends up helping Iris get through her own problems and fears over how Cicada broke into her office during the time loop. Joe's a good dad.

Overall, it's a pretty great episode. King Shark's story was unexpectedly told pretty well, and Grodd's return as well as the ensuing monster fight was clearly welcome. The ethics debate between Barry and the others is honestly a bit shoehorned in, and I kinda wish that the writing was a bit better to make Cisco's argument a bit more sensible (King Shark was about to eat you, dude). Still, I can't lie... I did enjoy this episode a lot. 

DC Easter Eggs Corner:

• King Shark, as well as his Earth-1 counterpart having died, was established pretty early in Flash's second season. King Shark himself has made some on-and-off appearances as one-scene wonders, and his last appearance was in Crisis on Earth-X, 2018's inter-show crossover. 
• Grodd was last seen in Legends of Tomorrow's third season, being recruited by Mallus as one of his minions against the Legends of Tomorrow. 
• Grodd has been portrayed with a mental-enhancing technobabble crown before, most prominently in the Justice League animated series. 
• The "but Grodd hate banana" bit that Joe posts in their little chat, in addition to being a hilarious comment, is a callback to Grodd's first appearance in The Flash, where he establishes that he really, really hates bananas.