The Flash Review: King Shark vs. Gorilla Grodd (Season 5 Episode 15)
In a twenty-something episode season, not every installment can be integral to the overall plot. Such is the case with The Flash Season 5 Episode 15, “King Shark vs. Gorilla Grodd,” which gives us the fight between giant humanoid animal villains we’ve all been waiting for, but not a whole lot else.
To be fair, though, it’s really hard to knock an episode that gives us a giant shark and a giant gorilla facing off for the fate of Central City’s human population. Stuff like this is basically what comic book shows were made to do.
Plus, with half of Team Flash commentating over comms like it’s actually Shark Week, it’s just too much fun to get too irritated about.
Yet, with so much other stuff going on, storywise — the continuing Cicada threat, Nora’s mysterious hidden mission, Eobard Thawne’s plan — it does feel a bit like a waste of time.
Does any part of this episode move the season’s story forward? Not really.
Sure, it hits a few key themes about acceptance, trust and doing the right thing even at great personal cost.
But it also sort of feels like the writers’ room just sat down and asked themselves, “Wouldn’t it be cool if King Shark punched Gorilla Grodd in the face?” And then decided to make that happen.
At least Barry, Cisco and Caitlin finally have the talk about whether the metahuman cure can and should be administered to someone against their will that they’ve been putting off for something like three episodes now.
Unfortunately, that moment only comes after Barry forces the cure on King Shark, an extremely uncomfortable move that pretty much left everyone feeling conflicted about whether our hero was being distinctly un-heroic.
Granted, Barry realizes he was wrong, eventually, and the original Team Flash gets a couple strong scenes dedicated to hashing out precisely why weaponizing the meta cure is the Worst Idea.
But the fact that Barry did it in the first place is…well. Concerning, to say the least.
As is the fact that The Flash both could and should have played this story beat earlier.
Barry, Cisco, Caitlin, Ralph and everyone they know have been talking about how they’ll attack Cicada with this cure for weeks. No debate. No discussion. No uncomfortableness. Nothing.
No ethical debate at all until right now.
To be fair, it’s good that the conversation is happening. But it doesn’t explain why The Flash was find with not just ignoring it for this long, but with having every character just go along with Barry’s decision without comment.
At least The Flash had Caitlin take the lead in objecting to the idea of forcing the cure on someone unwilling.
This, in almost every way, represents real and significant growth for a character who spent a big chunk of Season 3 and almost all of Season 4 searching for a way to dampen or remove her own abilities.
(This also seems true for Cisco, by the way, who just a few short episodes ago seemed eager to ditch his own abilities. Now, maybe not.)
The episode’s B plot is also King Shark-centric, as he becomes not only the first meta to be turned human again, but also the first to choose to regain his powers.
(So that he can fight a giant gorilla. Sometimes it’s hard to believe this show is real.)
Anyway, while he’s been a shark man, King Shark — or Shay as his human form is known — falls in love with his science minder, Dr. Tanya Lamden, who happens to be the Earth-1 doppelganger of the wife he lost back on Earth-2.
Tanya, for her part, is into Shay as well, though she seems to have a very clear preference for him in shark form.
Maybe it’s because that’s how they got to know one another. Maybe it’s because him looking like her dead husband is weirder than him being a shark. Who can say?Whatever the reason, their weird longing for one another has a strange kind of pathos to it. (And also a slightly strange Venom vibe. Just me?)
Somehow, however, The Flash manages to orchestrate all this so that by the time the episode ends, we’re all rooting for these crazy kids to get together like they’re in a comics version of The Shape of Water.
That’s the magic of the Arrowverse, I guess.
Stray Thoughts and Observations
- Honestly the King Shark vs. Gorilla Grodd fight should have been longer. Or happened more than once.
- It’s so good to see Jesse L. Martin back again! I can’t say that I thought much of his C plot with Iris this week.
- Shouldn’t King Shark have gotten some new pants after his second transformation?
- How is ARGUS so bad at their jobs??!
- I’m so tired of these endless plans for stopping Cicada, but the idea that just asking him if he’d like to be cured seems dumb, even for these guys with their terrible track record.
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.