The Flash Review: Seeing Red (Season 5 Episode 11)
The villainous Cicada is back in The Flash Season 5 Episode 11, “Seeing Red,” and though the character continues the show’s dismal record with season-long Big Bads to date, his return hints that maybe it doesn’t need one, as such.
Look, let’s be real. Cicada is basically Walmart Bane, with less nuanced voice acting and a more boring outfit. He could not be less interesting.
Though the show tried in previous episodes to give Owen Dwyer layers via a sob story backstory about his sick child, here it appears that The Flash has just given up, turning the character into little more than a killing machine with a hit list.
And you know what? It kind of doesn’t matter.
The most interesting stories The Flash is telling this season are focused on individual character arcs, rather than the mystery of who their ultimate enemy is.
Cicada, at least at this point, basically exists to provide Team Flash with obstacles to solve, and problems to face.
Sure, the Big Bad breaks Nora’s back in another fight with the group, but the story is about how that action affects both Barry and his daughter.
Barry’s dabble with the dark side of rage is intriguing and something the show might have benefited from extending over an episode or two. The idea of a speedster out of control is fascinating, and one that The Flash could stand to explore a bit further.
After all, none of us really expected Nora’s injury to be permanent, did we?
Of course not. This show has used speed healing to get out of every conceivable jam before, why would it suddenly not work now?
The real story here is Barry’s anger — something which not incidentally ties nicely into his “Elseworlds” arc about becoming too much like Oliver Queen.
Why not really let him lean into it for a little bit? Barry’s rage only comprises a tiny piece of “Seeing Red” and almost feels like an afterthought at the end of the episode.
Elsewhere, Killer Frost is concerned about Caitlin’s search for a metahuman cure. So much so that she openly sabotages her other half’s research whenever she gets the chance to do so.
The interesting part about all this is that we’ve already established Killer Frost isn’t a traditional metahuman. It’s why she can fight Cicada successfully.
So, while it’s understandable that Frost might object to Caitlin’s cure research on a theoretical level, she herself isn’t really in any danger. Not to mention, Caitlin spent upward of a dozen episodes working to get her icy alter ego back already.
(Though it was nice of The Flash to finally point that out to Frost.)
The Flash, traditionally, isn’t that great at nuance. It’s a superhero story of light, where good and evil tend to be fairly clearly defined and everything’s generally wrapped up in a message of hope and optimism.
That it is here, at last, digging into a truly complicated issue is pretty exciting.
Given that we know and love many metahumans it’s easy to assume that the idea of a cure is a bad one, on its face. (Yours truly is certainly guilty of this. I’ve seen enough X-Men movies, thank you very much.)
But “Seeing Red” actually makes an effort to portray the decision as more complicated than that. Some of the supposedly evil metas are actually not that bad, and some of them would have better lives if they no longer had powers.
Norvock, for example, is one of those people. He was a good person before he ended up with a snake in his head, and clearly has the capacity to be one again.
Should he get to make that choice on his own? Just as Caitlin and Killer Frost would choose to stay the way they are?
It’s worth debating how much of a disservice The Flash ultimately did both Caitlin and Killer Frost by bungling the origins of Frost’s story so badly. But at least — finally — the show seems determined to correct its earlier mistakes.
Is the whole two people sharing a body thing weird and maybe not the best way they could have gone with it? Yes, absolutely.
But it finally feels like it’s starting to click, and that’s because the show is at last giving us a look at how these two women — or halves of the same woman depending on how you want to look at it — relate to one another.
There’s genuine love there, as evidenced by the adorable scene in which Frost asks who will protect “Caity” if she isn’t around.
Who knew dissociative identity disorder could be so sweet?
Stray Thoughts and Observations
- Did anyone else think it was real dumb that Team Flash needed Caitlin to tell them that the injured meta needed to go to the hospital? Duh??
- Candice Patton and Jessica Parker Kennedy are gold together. Their relationship is so messy and genuine and pitch perfect.
- Killer Frost finally got to really fight someone!!!
- That helicopter was definitely way too small for all those people.
- Danielle Panabaker really does have incredible chemistry with herself.
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.