The Flash Review: Cause and XS (Season 5 Episode 14)
That messing around with the timestream can often bring about dire consequences isn’t exactly a new lesson for this show, but The Flash Season 5 Episode 14, “Cause and XS,” still somehow manages to make a well-worn trope fun to watch.
With Barry offscreen for most of the episode — ostensibly so star Grant Gustin could film the “Elseworlds” crossover event — Nora is left to fend for herself as the only speedster on Team Flash.
Theoretically, Barry’s made-up mission only requires him to be gone for an hour, but that is, of course, plenty of time for Nora to get into a seemingly insurmountable scrape.
When Cicada kidnaps Iris as part of a bizarre and strangely elaborate plot to kill a member of Team Flash, it results in Killer Frost’s death. (Leave my girl alone, you monsters!)
Nora, horrified that she brought Caitlin to a faceoff with a mouth-breathing creep to die, runs backward, rewinds time and starts the post Barry’s exit sequence we just saw all over again.
And that’s it. That’s the episode.
This sequence replays over and over, as Nora keeps trying to fix thing and people keep dying. Caitlin, Ralph, Cisco, Sherloque and even Cecile all fall victim to Cicada’s deeply unclever boomerang dagger trick as the time loops stack up on one another.
Yet, despite its repetitive nature in both a micro and a macro sense, “Cause and XS” is a generally entertaining hour, and one that actually feels fun to watch.
The constant resets are genuinely funny. From Nora’s increasing efforts to shuffle everyone into the STAR Labs lounge, to Cisco’s repeated dating pep talks from Ralph, this episode feels like an entertaining romp through time, rather than an installment where almost every major character dies brutally at least once.
The knockoff Groundhog Day scenario is something we’ve seen before, sure, but the fact that it’s Nora driving the narrative his time makes it feel fresh.
She’s desperate to prove herself, feeling guilty over everything that’s happened to Iris lately, and a bit too confident in her own abilities.
And, yes, it’s kiiiiiind of ridiculous that Nora hasn’t learned a lesson about how dangerous using speed to mess with time can be already — or that her father didn’t tell her about that time he replaced his friend’s daughter with a son thanks to irresponsible use of time travel.
Nora’s already an interloper from another time period, ostensibly changing some aspect of the future with every breath she takes. Not warning her about the dangers of these activities is pretty much asking for trouble at this point.
That Nora makes 52 attempts to rewrite the timeline in such a way that keeps everyone alive is admirable.
That she waits through 52 attempts to tell everyone what’s going on is…less so.
One of the biggest problems with The Flash is that its central characters not only keep extremely large secrets from one another on the regular, they frequently don’t share basic information with other people on the team.
Such is the case here, when Nora doesn’t bother to inform anyone about what’s going on and determines she must fix everything herself.
It’s what her father probably would have done back in the first few seasons of the show — but Nora has now what Barry really didn’t then: A solid team.
It’s Sherloque, Cisco and Iris who figure out that Nora’s rewinding time, and it’s the entirety of Team Flash that comes together to change the battle with Cicada just enough to save everyone.
Nora doesn’t have to go it alone, and her fight would have been demonstrably simpler if she’d just gone to the rest of the group from the beginning.
(This is probably the real lesson of The Flash as a whole, if we’re honest. Teamwork makes the dream work!)
Elsewhere, Cisco’s date with Kamilla, the bartender he met back in The Flash Season 5 Episode 12, “Memorabilia,” is a constant victim of Nora’s time shenanigans.
As far as B plots go, this one’s pretty silly, but provides an excellent showcase for Carlos Valdes, allowing him to highlight both Cisco’s frequently over-the-top social tendencies and his huge heart.
While the focus on his various date personas — from gym rat to slimy businessman — is entertaining, it’s his heart-to-heart with Nora that’s really the standout moment of the episode. (Even if the solution to both their problems turns out to be a trite sort of variation on “Be yourself.”)
It’s not the worst lesson in the world.
Stray Thoughts and Observations
- I love The Flash but I gotta be honest: Legends of Tomorrow did this time loop story much, much better this season.
- After 52 trips back into the past — over the literal same ground, no less — shouldn’t there have been multiple Noras or fading Noras or time wraiths or something? I’m willing to accept bizarre and/or half-cocked explanations for things pretty easily, but I need this show to at least try to keep up its own continuity.
- Cisco’s mention to Nora that Eobard Thawne killed him in a timeline that no longer exists really needs to come back up again.
- The final group fight sequence was really fun to watch even if I still don’t entirely understand how it worked.
- Cisco’s new girlfriend is deeply boring but his friendship with Ralph is so great.
- I really hope those rumors about Valdes leaving at the end of the season aren’t true, but if they are, then The Flash is actually doing a great job building up Cisco’s growing desire for a more normal kind of life in an organic way.
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.