The Flash S05E16 Review: XSpresso

The Flash, Season 5, Episode 16: Failure is an Orphan

An... an interesting episode, for sure. Honestly, we're 16 episodes into the season and I'm honestly pretty much so tired with Cicada, and I really am thankful that the writers have some semblance of sanity and realize that they're not going to pull another Thinker and stretch a villain with so much material for an entire season. The thing is, honestly, while I'm willing to give any villain a chance, Cicada honestly just easily feels like the shittiest Big Bad in any CW show in that he genuinely never feels entertaining. I want to compare him to Ricardo Diaz as both Cicada and Diaz have always felt like they had an edge over their respective enemies simply because of plot contrivance, but Diaz was at least hammy and entertaining. Cicada just feels like someone trying too hard to sound scary, but ends up being one-dimensional and bland.

After a brief talk with Eobard Thawne in 2049, Nora ends up witnessing a "new timeline struggling to break through", which has the rather hilarious visual of a newspaper report fragmenting and transforming, which is honestly pretty silly. With Eobard warning her to get done with Cicada before this timeline breaks and they lose their chance, Nora returns to the present day (honestly, the fact that Nora can apparently only travel between 2018/2019 and 2049 is always something that bugged me) and begins pestering everyone about metahuman cases and the like.

Meanwhile, Iris wants to get a very overworked Nora to lighten up since it might be the last time they get to spend together (why, though? I mean, Nora's a time-traveler, she can pop around and say hi any time), while Barry works on making a speech to say to Cicada. Some fun little interactions from the charismatic cast, and Nora pulling out random Flash Pep Talks is pretty neat continuity nod. They find the plot device metahuman of the episode, "Acid Master", who probably ties with Sand Demon and Shade as the most bland and uninteresting villain of the week.

Meanwhile, Joe West's B-plot leads him and Cecile to interrogate dr. Vanessa Ambres, the doctor lady curing Cicada, and finally we get a name to her face, despite having being a recurring character for over 10 episodes. This leads to some hijinks as Joe gets intimidated by Cecile's truth-seeking abilities and gets thrown off his game, leading to an argument which, in turn, causes Barry to pep-talk Joe into apologizing. Honestly, this Joe/Barry moment was genuinely very well done, and I really realize how much the show has missed Jesse L. Martin.

Also, speaking of missing actors, Ralph is nowhere to be seen in this episode. Honestly, considering how great Flash has been at just having Cisco or whoever handwave absence, it's pretty weird why Ralph is consistently this character that disappears and reappears between episodes.

Joe and Cecile's investigation and interrogation of dr. Ambres ends up with the revelation that little Grace is also a metahuman, and when they manage to set up a string operation to get Flash to talk to Cicada... he opens his mask (which is kinda dumb, but Barry is dumb) and tries to appeal to Cicada as a father. Cicada wants to have dr. Ambres be present when they administer the cure, and also because they need to stitch up the wound that will reopen once Cicada's powers are nullified. It's... it's honestly a character change that I don't particularly like, but Cicada has honestly been such a one-dimensional character defined by vengeance for his adoptive daughter, that I can definitely buy him going "yeh okay" with all of this. Genuinely wished they had done more, but... eh, okay.

The operation is interrupted by a second Cicada, who the show tries to play up the mystery but is obvious that she's the same person from Grace's dreams. This Cicada seems to have Force-esque people throwing powers, too, so I guess both Cicadas have "random powers as the plot demands" as a similar point. Cicada II kills Ambres, the dagger also responds to her, and she kidnaps Orlin away and reveals herself to be a future Grace Gibbons.

And... okay, that could be cool. I'm not a big fan that the first Cicada is honestly just a bland, boring flat character that basically serves as this origin story accessory for a potentially more interesting second Cicada. And there clearly are a lot of parallels being shoved down our throats, with both Grace and Nora being future daughters that come to the past to engage in this conflict... but it's a fun twist, and hopefully one that's not as bland as original Cicada has been.

DC Easter Eggs Corner:

• Acid Master, a.k.a. Phillip Master, is a minor Superman villain from the golden age, although instead of being a metahuman, the comic-book Acid Master was a treacherous chemist who betrayed the USA to work for other countries. 
• Eobard mentions "Anthro the First Boy" and "Kamandi the Last". Both are characters that received comics in DC before they became exclusively superhero-characters -- with Anthro being a caveman and Kamandi, the Last Boy on Earth, living in a post-apocalyptic flooded world where he is the only human in a Planet of the Apes style world with beast-men being the dominant species, but have basically been canonized in DC canon as being the "first human" and the "last human" respectively, and the two have made multiple cameos over the years in various DC crossover comics.