The Flash Review: Godspeed (Season 5 Episode 18)
Danielle Panabaker becomes the first actress in the Arrowverse to sit in the director’s chair and delivers the best episode of the season with The Flash Season 5 Episode 18, “Godspeed”.
While the installment is named after the famous villain turned anti-hero from the Flash comics who briefly appears as a baddie of the week here, “Godspeed” is primarily an origin story about Nora.
And it finally, finally shows us the fallout from The Flash Season 5 Episode 17, “Time Bomb,” in which her secret connection to the evil Reverse Flash was revealed.
It’s a lot to take in.
The bulk of “Godspeed” takes place in Nora’s future, in which we meet the West-Allen daughter before she had powers, but still professed a healthy obsession with speedsters and their history.
(Though since speedsters and vigilantes don’t seem to be around anymore by the time their future arrives, one really does have to wonder what on earth happened during the “crisis” we’ll see in the crossover next year.)
This future Nora — the Nora from before we knew her on The Flash — comes off as bright and upbeat. She’s endearingly like Barry actually, all awkward social encounters and too-fast talking complete with a forensic CSI job on top. Even her best friend Lia is a charming mix of Cisco and Caitlin, blending weirdly advanced science skills with a knack for naming supervillains on the fly.
Her story is basically a 2049 version of the original The Flash pilot, complete with an almost astonishing array of call-backs and similar visual cues.
Our first scene with Nora running late to work mirrors her father’s original tardy entrance to a crime scene in the pilot, she ends up in a laundry truck after discovering her speed the same way Barry did, and she even gets the exact same training pep talk from Eobard Thawne at the end of the episode. Right down to the “Run, Nora, run.”
Part of Nora’s costume apparently even has a piece of Barry’s original jacket in it.
Just in case any of us weren’t 100% sure that this girl is the Flash’s daughter!
The actual beats of the story here aren’t nearly as important as the character work that goes on around them — which is probably why the plot of this episode, as such, is pretty thin.
Godspeed turns out to be a guy who’s managed to recreate Season 2’s Velocity 9, the speed drug that can turn humans into metas. He’s trying to make it permanent so he can be a speed god forever; Nora’s trying to stop him because he’s a bad dude.
Because at the end of the day, Godspeed, as himself, isn’t that important. It’s what his arrival kicks into gear. ‘
Because while she’s investigating Godspeed, Nora learns she has powers. And not just that she has powers, but that her mother Iris deliberately suppressed them, and forced everyone they knew to keep the secret of them from her.
That’d be a big enough dose in and of itself, but Godspeed also kills her best friend in front of her and she learns that the father she never knew was the Flash.
Of course it drives her straight to the literal worst man in the world.
Nora’s initial decision to visit Eobard Thawne feels understandable. She wants to know more about how to battle speedsters, especially following Lia’s death.
It’s unclear precisely why she keeps going back to him again and again, particularly after discovering the truth of his past, including his murder of her own grandmother.
While she certainly had several real bonding moments with Thawne, his rapidly approaching execution means that Nora can’t possibly have had that much time with him.
In short: This connection still doesn’t entirely make sense. Even if Tom Cavanagh and Jessica Parker Kennedy sell the heck out of it.
Speaking of great performances, Kennedy deserves even more accolades for Nora’s face off with future Iris. Her anger and betrayal feel palpable, and Iris deserves it all.
And yet best part of this particular intra-family conflict is that it’s so easy to see where both sides are coming from. They’re both right, and they’re both wrong.
Iris deserves to get yelled at, but can we blame her for wanting to protect her daughter, who is apparently all she has left of Barry? Nora’s decision to trust Thawne is dumb, but can anyone be mad at her for wanting to see her father?
Perhaps knowing that this confrontation awaits her makes present-day Iris more sympathetic toward her daughter, insisting that she be given a chance to explain her choices.
Barry’s not really having it though and puts his daughter in 2049 time-out at the first available opportunity.
Is it maybe not the best decision to send his daughter back to the future without even consulting Iris, who has made her feelings on a second chance for Nora clear? Probably.
But Barry’s heartbroken claim that he can’t have people around him he doesn’t trust feels equally legitimate, and it’s easy to see how he might arrive at the decision that the best thing for all the West-Allens right now is to send Nora home.
Once again, it’s possible to see how every party in this family conflict feels the way they do. They’re all making decisions with the best of intentions, and you can clearly see how each is both right and wrong in this scenario.
It’s a messy story, to be sure — but those are usually the best kind.
Stray Thoughts and Observations
- For all that this episode filled in a lot of blanks, it didn’t quite get to all of them. Because nowhere in all this did anyone actually explain what Nora and Thawne were trying to do in the past. It was clearly more than simply allowing an upset teen to see the father she idolized. Were they trying to change the timeline to save Barry? Stop Thawne’s execution? All of the above?
- It’s also still not clear what Thawne’s getting out of all this — or why it’s Nora’s confession that Godspeed killed Lia that drives him to help her. Is it because he sees her as a sort of secondary Barry, also fueled by grief and loss and thereby more likely to make more choices?
- If Lia (RIP!!!) came up with the name Godspeed, where did XS come from?
- I guess this show is never going to explain why Thawne is a.) alive again and b.) wearing this particular form, huh??
- It’s comforting to know that whatever happens in “Crisis” next year, Jitters survives.
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.
One thought on “The Flash Review: Godspeed (Season 5 Episode 18)”
Most of your review I like but why does a wife or woman deserved to be yelled at anytime but especiially in front of her father and friends, that is NEVER COOOL.
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