The Flash Review: The Death of Vibe (Season 5 Episode 3)
The Flash Season 5 Episode 3, “The Death of Vibe,” sports a dramatically over the top title, but features a story that’s surprisingly grounded.
New villain Cicada is stalking Vibe for reasons we don’t yet know, Barry and Iris continue to deal with the presence of their daughter from the future, and Caitlin’s search for answers about her family continues.
For once, The Flash seems to be basing most of its story on actual character beats, rather than desired narrative ends. And, for the most part, that’s a very good thing.
Cicada remains extremely scary, Nora’s presence continues to complicate things in interesting ways and, for what feels like potentially the first time ever, the B plot keeps building on stories from the previous episodes as Caitlin’s investigation into her father’s “death” continues.
True, “The Death of Vibe” isn’t terribly exciting, in the sense that no one probably ever believed that Cisco was in any real danger. If we’re honest, The Flash and most of the other Arrowverse shows have conditioned us all to believe that even if someone “dies”, they’ll still be back somehow. (Hi, Ralph.)
But the creepy introduction to Cicada by way of Nora’s voiceover about what she learned about him from the Flash Museum was awesome, as is the concept that this is finally a villain that Barry won’t defeat.
Yes, we all know that eventually Team Flash likely will defeat Cicada. (That’s kind of this show’s thing.) But there’s still something about the idea of an uncatchable serial killer that really adds a sense of impending doom to everything.
Hands down, the best part of these early Season 5 episodes continues to be Jessica Parker Kennedy’s Nora, who is charming, sweet and almost painfully eager to please. While the overall explanation about how or why, exactly, she’s changed the timeline extremely confusing — are we even sure she should still exist at this point? — it’s hard to resist her eager dedication to fixing her mistakes.
In fact, Nora’s continued screw-ups really highlight how much like her father she is, as it’s pretty easy to imagine Barry doing, well, pretty much everything his daughter has.
The two are exceptionally sweet together, and there’s something about turning him into a pseudo-elder statesman with a wife and daughter that has really settled Barry down in a way we’ve never seen before.
He’s not mopey or brooding! This is wild!
The gang tracks down a man they believe to be Cicada thanks to the help from yet another new version of Harrison Wells. This one is called — and I promise I am not making this up – Sherloque Wells. As the name implies, he’s the multiverse’s master detective, and he’ll be sticking around to try and help Team Flash solve this case.
My question is: why?
As amazing as Tom Cavanagh is, one has to wonder whether there’s even still a place for any version of Wells on this show, particularly when The Flash already struggles to serve its secondary characters as it is. Does this character even matter anymore?
The idea of different Wells-es existing throughout the multiverse was entertaining when they first tried it — and, of course, provided a reason to keep Cavanagh around after original recipe Wells was revealed to be Eobard Thawne, but it may be time to admit it’s run its course.
(In all honesty, I’m not sure why the show decided simply keeping normal Earth-2 Wells around wasn’t an option?)
At any rate, it seems fair to assume that Sherloque Wells and his dreadfully affected accent is going to get real old real quick.
Elsewhere, Caitlin visits her mother to confront her over her father’s falsified death certificate. Yes, it’s a bit unfortunate that she gets paired up with Ralph for this sidequest when it probably would have made more sense to take Cisco.
But it’s so nice to see Caitlin in the middle of a multiple-episode story that’s solely focused on her, her past and how that may impact her future that I kind of don’t care.
Here’s hoping that it’s actually going somewhere worthwhile.
Stray Thoughts and Observations
- Cicada is basically Walmart Bane, and I am already so very tired of his heavy breathing-infused manner of speech.
- In other Cicada-related thoughts: I honestly don’t need to know that he’s a father or has a family. Or at least, not at this point. This character is at his scariest as a mysterious Jack-the-Ripper figure appearing out of nowhere to stalk and kill metas for reasons our team can’t quite understand yet. Maybe trot out the personal sob story at midseason, show. Just let me enjoy this guy being a monster for a bit.
- Pretty sure that Nora’s nickname should just be “Kinderflash” now.
- Okay, okay, Ralph accidentally making himself into a meme was pretty hilarious.
- I wish we had gotten to spend more than three minutes with Caitlin’s mom.
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.