The Flash Review: News Flash (Season 5 Episode 4)
The Flash Season 5 Episode 3, “News Flash,” continues the show’s fifth season trend of solid storytelling anchored by strong character moments. While this episode is much more villain-of-the-week than the season’s first three installments, it nevertheless still manages to keep most of the ongoing plots moving forward in interesting ways.
Much of “News Flash” focuses on the West-Allen family relationship, particularly the tension between Nora and Iris.
While the strain between these two can occasionally feel a bit over the top — Nora’s obvious preference for her father makes a certain amount of sense but her treatment of her mother is often very terrible — this episode actually adds some complicated layers to their relationship.
For starters, we learn that Future Iris inserted some kind of power dampener in her daughter, keeping her speedster abilities a secret for most of her life. Nora, who discovered her powers six months ago, is understandably angry about this.
The Flash — “News Flash” — Photo: Robert Falconer/The CW — © 2018 The CW Network, LLC. All rights reserved
The thing is, though, we don’t know why Iris lied to Nora, or what drove her to her decision to do so.
Perhaps it was motivated by Barry’s disappearance, and a grieving Iris couldn’t accept risking losing another family member to the superhero life. Maybe Nora’s powers made her a target for some meta-destroying future villain. Who knows?
Barry, for his part, is sure that Iris did whatever she did with the best of intentions, but, well, that also doesn’t mean her decision was a good one. (Both Barry and Iris have made p l e n t y of terrible choices they thought were great at the time!)
It’s nice to finally have an explanation for why Nora knows so little about being a speedster, though, despite being only a bit younger than Barry was when he started.
The Flash deserves some praise for managing to finally integrate these big character beats into the larger ongoing story. Everything feels so much more balanced, and the narrative doesn’t feel like it stops and starts so often.
It really does feel like Cicada, Nora, the West-Allen family drama and Ralph’s journey to becoming a better person are all part and parcel of a larger story.
Thus far, Caitlin’s search for the truth about her father remains an outlier, but I wouldn’t be surprised to see the Killer Frost stuff fold into the Cicada plotline somehow. She is, after all, a very different kind of meta.
One of the most unintentionally hilarious things about The Flash is the show’s ongoing need to continually create random reasons why people have powers. First there was the particle accelerator, then there was the bus hit by dark matter when Barry returned from the Speed Force.
Now, there’s meta technology. People weren’t enough, I guess, now we have to worry about dark matter-infested iPhones.
To be fair, Spencer Young’s “power” – an app that basically brought her self-designed fake news headlines to life – is actually really interesting, even if the larger political commentary about a society obsessed with apps and social media feels a little on the nose these days.
Spencer came prepackaged with an understandable motive (a desire for internet fame) and a pre-existing backstory with Iris.
It would have been nice if their rivalry had a bit more depth, but that probably would have required acknowledging that Iris isn’t that different from Spencer in some ways.
After all, her start in journalism largely came about thanks to her known personal connection to The Flash, so it makes sense that Spencer might try and exploit something similar with XS.
The show really could have done a better job of getting us to the point where having XS kill The Flash was Spencer’s goal, though? Um, what? Isn’t that kind of killing the goose that laid the golden egg?).
But I guess we’ve at least explained why Cicada’s dagger is magic, so that’s something.
Stray Thoughts and Observations
- I would have been happy if the whole episode was about Barry struggling to play softball, tbh.
- Ralph getting the chance to prove himself as a detective is actually awesome, and if the character had been introduced this way last season I’d probably like him a lot more.
- Sherloque Wells’ weird hybrid French accent is THE WORST.
- Call me shallow, but Caitlin punching Sherloque in the chest was SO cathartic. I still miss Earth-2 Harry.
- Props to Candice Patton for some great work as Iris this week – her constant frustration that she can never do anything right in her daughter’s eyes is both subtle and moving.
- If Spencer weren’t such an obvious monster, she and Nora would have been very cute together.
- Yay that no one made a big deal over Nora being into girls though. Way to go, show.
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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Lacy Baugher
Lacy is a pop culture enthusiast and television critic who loves period dramas, epic fantasy, space adventures, and the female characters everyone says you're supposed to hate. Ninth Doctor enthusiast, Aziraphale girlie, and cat lady, she's a member of the Television Critics Association and Rotten Tomatoes-approved. Find her at LacyMB on all platforms.