The Flash Review: What’s Past is Prologue (Season 5 Episode 8)
The Flash Season 5 Episode 8, “What’s Past is Prologue” celebrates the superhero series’ landmark 100th episode with an installment that does its best to honor its past, while still moving this season’s story forward.
For the most part, it succeeds, touching on several key moments in The Flash’s long history, including the final battle with Savitar, Zoom’s theft of Barry’s speed, and the original particle accelerator explosion that started it all.
While it’s kind of a shame that we don’t have the same sparkling array of guest actors who popped up with sister series The Flash celebrated its big 1-0-0, it was nevertheless nice to see some shots of Ronnie, Professor Stein and the original Parents Allen for a few moments here and there.
But most of “What’s Past is Prologue” is about setting things up for the future, even as it acknowledges the series’ long, complicated and often compelling past.
Surprisingly, the episode appears to wrap up the Cicada plotline for the moment, which is kind of a good thing since it had already started to feel like it was running out of steam. Part of the problem is that the idea of Cicada – a faceless serial killer that Barry never manages to catch – never really lived up to the actuality of the character.
Instead, the more we learned about Cicada, the less compelling the character became. Giving him a sad backstory and a retread reason for his vendetta against all metas all started to feel like a story we’ve seen before.
Therefore, The Flash’s apparent decision to trade Cicada for the Harrison Wells version of Eobard Thawne is more than welcome.
Sure, this plot is kind of messy. It doesn’t entirely make sense that Nora would (apparently?) work with her father’s nemesis for some still-nebulous reason, but the West-Allen daughter has been making bad choices all season long.
And it’s not as though this would be the first time that Eobard Thawne manipulated a young and vulnerable speedster into doing his bidding. Plus, if it means we get Evil!Wells back? I’m here for it.
The most compelling scene in “What’s Past is Prologue” is definitely Barry and Nora’s visit to see the Wells version of Eobard Thawne, and their subsequent Hannibal Lecter-esque game of cat and mouse.
Tom Cavanagh is, as per usual, incredible in this role, managing to be simultaneously creepy, terrifying, compelling and oddly humorous. This version of Wells, more than any other, has been Cavanagh’s best work on The Flash and his return only further highlights what a waste of his talents the existence of Sherloque is.
(To be fair: It was also nice to see Earth-2 Harry again for a second, and I’m still angry that The Flash basically melted his brain for no reason last season. It is still also true that Sherloque is bad.)
The revelation that Nora has a dark secret is one that has been a long time coming, and which arrives just in time to stave off complaints that her storyline had become kind of stale.
Now that she’s realized her mother isn’t the monster she always assumed and her father isn’t perfect, what else is there for Nora to do?
Well, betray everyone, apparently.
To what end, we don’t yet know. But to be honest, watching Nora’s horror grow as she realized all the things that Thawne (clearly) has not told her about himself or his relationship to Barry, and one has to assume that whatever she’s involved in is…less than great.
At any rate, I’m certainly more interested in finding out what that is than any aspect of Cicada’s story we’ve seen so far, so I’m going to consider the reintroduction of Thawne a Christmas present just for me.
Stray Thoughts and Observations:
- The fact that Killer Frost actually gets to save the day is fantastic, and long overdue. Plus, the twist actually makes sense, and serves as a nice payoff to the fact that we’ve spent so much time this season discussing how Caitlin’s icy alter ego isn’t a dark matter-based meta.
- However, given that this was a big anniversary episode, I wish The Flash had given both Cisco and Caitlin more substantial roles in the story.
- I guess it’s fine that Cicada got away at the end of his face off with Team Flash, but I can’t say I hope to ever see the character again. (Though what a lame ending to the “one that got away” framing?)
- Ralph’s use of the “Back in Time” track from the Back to the Future movie soundtrack was amazing.
- The fact that Tom Cavanagh played two different roles in this episode while he directed it is pretty incredible.
- Anyone have any ideas on why the 2049 version of Thawne has Harrison Wells’ face but Thawne’s actual hair? Or, given that he basically exploded on Legends of Tomorrow, how he exists at all?
How are time wraiths not harassing Nora nonstop? She’s basically living in a displaced time period now?
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 8/7c 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.