The Flash S05E17 Review: We're Not A Team, We're A...

The Flash, Season 5, Episode 17: Time Bomb

Definitely a bit of a slower episode that ratchets up to an explosive finish. And I honestly do look at the previous episodes of the season as a whole and wonder if some of the mysteries couldn't have been better paced. I praise the fact that both Arrow and Flash seem to be moving to half-seasons, each starring a different main antagonist, but the pacing in this half-season has certainly been atrocious.

I'd point to Sherloque's investigations, which has ran on in the background for far too long and eating up way too much screentime. We finally get him finding out about the connection to Harrison Wells and it's... it's honestly just a tiring finish to this subplot. Maybe if we actually took out some of the more extraneous Sherloque-suspicion scenes from previous episodes, this would've flown a bit better? The Ralph/Cisco bit, while always fun to watch since both actors have great chemistry, also feel genuinely repetitive, and seems to be leading to Cisco struggling with his identity as a powered person or something? I dunno.

Anyway, the theme for this episode, once, more, is 'secrets'. Eobard tells a panicked Nora to tell her father everything and figure things out about that, but she refuses to. The metahuman of the week, Vicki Bolen, keeps her metahuman powers a secret from her family, and gets attacked by Cicada, leading to an explosive argument with her husband later on for keeping that a secret. Granted, Vicki is kind of a moron -- even if you want to keep it a secret, at least make an excuse to go out of the huge, huge party when someone's telling you that a metahuman killer is coming for her.

The two Cicadas are basically hanging out together for a bit, but Future Grace is a woman with a mission, and ends up killing some poor cop to get a case file -- one about her parents' death, and it was caused by a freak accident by Vicki Bolen, who couldn't control her powers. Grace basically refuses to accept that this is an accident, and is very, very much trying to justify her murder of every single metahuman in the world. It's a bit sudden and it's something I wished we had foreshadowing or some mention of before, but, eh, I'll buy it.

Team Flash solving the riddle of where Future Grace came from is honestly pretty hilariously simple and contrived, but I'd prefer them just finding the time bubble, Nora's dreams and Cisco's vibes to just figure it out in under ten minutes instead of dragging it out for half a season.

After a failed attempt at Future Grace killing Vicki, and a reaffirmation that they just can't use the cure on kid Grace (both ethics and the fact that she's too fragile to use the cure), everyone, including Orlin, comes to the conclusion that Vicki caused the deaths of Grace's parents in an accident. It's honestly a bit hard to buy that the hate-filled, one-dimensionally dumb Orlin would actually figure out that the death is an accident... but, eh, I'll buy it. It's an honestly poor attempt to make Orlin sympathetic in his last moments, but he's been such a bland brick of a character it's hard for me to really care.

Whatever the case, Grace-Cicada attacks again, leading to an admittedly cool bit where XS and Flash run on opposite directions to trick the dagger with the help of some Vibe portals. While Flash is fighting Grace, Orlin randomly shows up and tries to talk Grace down. After a brief "but my parents" screaming fit, Grace goes deathly calm, summons her dagger, and kills Orlin! And I really wished I had more emotion to spare, but I just went "oh, well, that happened". I'm not sure why Grace just bugs off at the end, though. She really has Flash on the ropes there!

After everyone regroups, Sherloque suddenly walks out and reveals every single thing about Nora that he's found out, telling everyone that she's working with Eobard Thawne, and with Cecile's truth-telling abilities, there's no way for her to lie out of this. The fact that she's been struggling with how to tell Barry and the rest of the team this secret is honestly kinda sad for her, but at the same time... she did sort of brought this on herself. The scene where Barry quite literally just zips her to the Pipeline is pretty cold and shockingly fast, though.

Overall, it's a fun "new status quo" episode for sure, as we move into the second part of the season starring New Cicada as the new big bad. I'm not 100% sure I'm on-board yet, since this episode really feels a wee bit more of "more of the same", but we'll see. 

DC Easter Eggs Corner

• Vicki Bolen is not based on any DC comic-book superhero or supervillain. 
• Cisco's "Operation Shazam" is, of course, a reference to the superhero Shazam (previously Captain Marvel), who has a lightning bolt for an emblem, similar to the one that Cisco scratched into the time bubble machine. 
• Peter Parker, a.k.a. Marvel's Spider-Man, is briefly mentioned multiple times by Ralph and Cisco. 
• Among the items in the Starchives (in addition to the Time Sphere, of course), include the helmet Barry wore in the first episode while testing his speed, Wells/Thawne's wheelchair, the season four Flash suit, the Speed Force Bazooka and the anti-metahuman BOOT gun from season two.