The Flash Review: The Flash & The Furious (Season 5 Episode 10)
Returning from its midseason hiatus, The Flash Season 5 Episode 10, “The Flash and the Furious” offers up an overstuffed but ambitious hour that sets a lot of pieces in motion for the future and gives some of the series’ supporting cast a chance to shine.
Part of the reason this installment feels so busy is likely because we actually haven’t had a proper episode of The Flash for a while.
The last time we saw Barry and friends was as part of the “Elseworlds” crossover event last December. Prior to that, the series aired its 100th episode, which had to serve as a trip down memory lane in addition to a present-day story.
So, you know, it’s been a while.
“The Flash and the Furious,” however, drops us right back in to the season’s larger storylines, from Nora’s secret partnership with Eobard Thawne to the ongoing rash of dangerous meta tech in Central City and another round of the season-long debate about good, evil and what being a hero means.
The introduction of Silver Ghost is a little on the lame side — her meta tech powers seem to pretty much involve driving an array of fancy cars around to no real end. But, her arrival at least seems to hint at the formation of a new Young Rogues gallery for Team Flash to battle, which would be a welcome change.
(The Flash really was at its best when repeat villains like Captain Cold and Heat Wave made regular appearances.)
The return of the Weather Witch isn’t exactly exciting, but it does give The Flash the chance to add a bit more depth to a badly underwritten villain. Plus, there’s something appealingly nuanced about the idea that Joss could turn out to be another Leonard Snart waiting to happen.
This show really does need to lean more often into the idea that shades of grey exist sometimes, is what I’m saying.
Which may actually be what it’s trying to do here, in the end. Nora’s discovery that Eobard Thawne killed her grandmother has her suddenly convinced that all bad guys are incapable of change and part of this episode’s reason for existing is to convince her otherwise. In typical Barry Allen pep talk fashion.
Do I think Thawne’s profession of good intentions and a change of heart is true? Probably not. But the dangling possibility that it might be, in this new broken and beaten down form, is intriguing. And certainly not the story I thought The Flash was resurrecting this character to tell.
Plus, we still don’t know what he and Nora were originally trying to do together in the first place.
Obviously, it must be something significant, as whatever it is was still enough to convince a Nora that did presumably know many of Thawne’s worst actions to want to work with him anyway.
(One of this storyline’s most nonsensical ideas is that the death of her grandmother is enough to convince Nora that Eobard can’t be trusted…but not the dozens of other terrible things he did? Spend some time at the Flash Museum, girl!)
In other storylines that kind of come out of nowhere, Cisco decides that he maybe doesn’t want to be a metahuman anymore because it means being threatened by bad guys constantly.
Which, sure, but it’s not like that wasn’t happening when he wasn’t Vibe?
To be fair, The Flash has had a fairly lazy tendency recently to give everyone powers whether it made sense to do so or not. Even Cecile was a telepath last season!
So, on principle, I’m not opposed to the idea of walking that back a bit, and revisiting the basic idea that people are plenty capable of being heroes without special abilities. (Also, let’s be real, this show uses Cisco’s vibe and breaching powers as a crutch a lot.)
And I don’t hate the idea of a metahuman cure outright. It could provide some interesting new story avenues. Especially since this time Caitlin isn’t involved out of desperation to fix something inside herself that isn’t broken, but instead to advocate for metas who don’t want to cure themselves.
And the prospect of a subplot that leans on Caitlin and Cisco’s friendship at its heart is something I want to see. Always.
However, all that said, haven’t any of these people ever seen an X-Men movie? No matter how altruistic their intentions might be, someone is going to steal that meta cure and do something terrible with it.
The only question is who’s going to do it.
Stray Thoughts and Observations
- The quick moment in which we see Barry reading Mick Rory’s romance novel from Legends of Tomorrow is the kind of crossover content I am here for, and honestly what these shows do best.
- It was so weird that no one even mentioned where Ralph was while Barry was out of commission.
- WayneTech reference! WayneTech reference!
- I’m not even going to go into how dumb it was for both Barry and Nora to leave Cecile’s trial just to track down a stolen luxury car. But it was real dumb.
- The car-themed subplot was kind of meh overall for me, but the emoji keypad that operates the ARGUS stealth prototype was amazing.
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.