The Flash Review: Blocked (Season 5 Episode 2)

The Flash Season 5 Episode 2, “Blocked,” contains a perfect example of how the show is attempting to rectify some of the problems that have plagued it in the past in its very opening moments.

The episode begins with Barry and Nora sitting down with the rest of Team Flash and…telling them the truth.

Yup, Barry and his future daughter explain the real reason for her trip back into the past, including his disappearance shortly after her birth, Nora’s subsequent life without him, and her desire to meet the father she never knew.

Those of you who have watched The Flash for a bit now already know how wild this is. No one on this show ever wants to be honest with their loved ones. People keep secrets as easily as breathing.

So, yeah, this is a big change. And it’s fantastic. Not just for itself as a story point (though that’s a nice plus). But for what it hopefully means for the rest of the season.

Much like Season 5 premiere episode, “Nora”, this installment focuses primarily on relationships and character moments. And it’s hard to overemphasize how satisfying it all feels.

Technically, there’s a villain of the week, a woman called Block with the power to compress air molecules into cubes. She’s an arms dealer of some sort and almost completely irrelevant to the plot at large.

It’s so great.

Mostly, Block serves as a conduit to introduce our heroes to Cicada, a mouth-breathing meta murderer with a lightning bolt dagger that somehow sucks powers out of those that possess them.

We don’t find out much more than that, because Cicada is clearly our Season 5 Big Bad, and we’ve got to parse out the revelations on that front for a bit. (Or at least until next week.) And that’s totally fine.

Villains of all stripes take a backseat to our main characters this week, and The Flash is all the better for it.

Instead of exposition about arms sales or magical daggers, we see Barry going to work at his actual job. (Hands up if you even remembered whether he had one?) Iris does some actual investigative journalism. And Cisco and Caitlin have a heart to heart for the first time in the better part of a year.

This episode honestly feels like Christmas.

While Barry spends the bulk of “Blocked” attempting to train Nora on how to be a better speedster, Caitlin and Ralph try to help Cisco deal with his break-up with Gypsy.

(In case you too have forgotten, Season 5 is supposed to be taking place mere moments after Season 4, which means that stuff is all a lot fresher for Team Flash than for us.)

Ralph’s involvement in what should clearly be a strictly Caitlin and Cisco-oriented plot is a blatantly obvious attempt to rehabilitate the character after his behavior last season. And, for the most part, it works.

Season 5 Ralph is adorably goofy, appealing in a completely innocuous, wide-eyed fashion, and certainly not someone who would ever say misogynistic or sexist things to his female colleagues.

Even though anyone who paid attention for more than five minutes last season is probably aware that this character only bears a passing resemblance to the Ralph we saw last season, it’s difficult not to like him.

Hartley Sawyer pours on the charm, and he has a nice, easy chemistry with Carlos Valdes and Danielle Panabaker. So, while it’s easy to resent the fact that Ralph gets shoehorned into their friendship moment, at least the trio is fun together.

Furthermore, The Flash deftly wraps Caitlin’s anxiety over her father potentially still being alive into the story about Cisco’s dating heartbreak. It gives the two a heart-to-heart that not only moves the story forward for them both, but reminds us how vital their friendship is at the same time.

This kind of story is precisely what The Flash is best at. Yes, there are silly villains, and science that doesn’t really make sense, and frequently violated rules about how being a speedster work. None of that is really what we watch the show for.

It’s for all the other stuff: The parental advice and the trips to Jitters and friends standing by one another no matter what. It’s the people that make The Flash magic, and it’s such a relief to see the show itself start to realize that again.

Stray Thoughts and Observations

• Cicada looks like a serial killer and I have no idea how his powers work at all.
• The new Flash suit looks so ridiculously terrible and I’m actually angry about how cheap it looks while Barry’s wearing it.
• Grant Gustin and Jessica Parker Kennedy have incredibly chemistry with one another.
• Love that Iris and Nora’s relationship stayed realistically messy even after she learned the truth about Barry’s disappearance. It’s one thing for Iris to rationally understand why her daughter clings to Barry so hard; it’s quite another to figure out how to live with so obviously being her second choice.
• I wonder if we’ll find out more about what Iris and Nora’s relationship was like in the future? It feels as though there’s a lot more going on under the surface there.

What did you think of this episode of The Flash? Share your thoughts in the comments below!

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The Flash airs Tuesdays at 8pm on The CW.

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