The Flash Review: Gone Rogue (Season 5 Episode 20)
Is The Flash Season 5 Episode 20, “Gone Rogue,” the dullest installment of the year? Unfortunately, yes, and that’s really not a great look for the show with just two episodes left to go in the season.
The plot wavers between plain boring and straight up nonsensical. Ostensibly, the idea of Nora embracing her dark side thanks to the Negative Speed Force is intriguing, if only because it gives Jessica Parker Kennedy some new material to work with.
(Plus, every actor immediately becomes like 500% more fun if they get to put on black leather and swagger around, just saying.)
Evil Nora’s plan involves stealing some expensive meta tech from a facility guarded by a dampener that suppresses powers, so she needs the help of some bad guys with meta tech of their own.
Enter Weather Witch, Bug Eyed Bandit and Ragdoll, three baddies from earlier on in the season/series who are kind of entertaining, but probably couldn’t carry another episode on their own.
As a group, the young Rogues are an interesting combination, and it’s always fun when The Flash does villain team-ups of any type.
However, none of these characters has any real chemistry or connection with Nora, which makes it harder to believe in her heel turn from the very start.
Most of “Gone Rogue” centers around the ongoing West-Allen family angst, as Barry and Iris continue to butt heads about their daughter and how they should treat the idea that she may actually be evil now.
Most of this feels like variations of the things the West-Allen said to each other last week, right down to Iris suggesting that Eobard Thawne’s plan is actually good now, probably. (Yikes!)
Once again, neither Barry nor Iris makes any real effort to understand the other’s point of view.
The episode’s weird insistence that all of this is because Barry “abandoned” Nora in the future she lives in is beyond frustrating. As is Iris’ refusal to admit that Team Flash has some valid reasons not to trust her daughter since we’ve now spent multiple episodes watching Nora do things we know she shouldn’t.
Iris’ Mama Bear instincts are admirable as is Barry’s desire to be a good dad, but we’re rapidly approaching the point of parody here.
And Nora’s repeated tantrums aren’t exactly helping her cause either, it must be said.
The idea that Nora wanted to steal a weapon capable of stopping Cicada is fine, in and of itself. Yet, her double cross of her rogues gallery comes out of nowhere, and The Flash’s explanation of why Nora had to assemble a team of C-list villains to pull off this robbery rather than simply going to any member of Team Flash that wasn’t her father is pitifully weak.
(Even if she’s right and Barry wouldn’t have believed her story, there’s no reason to think that Joe, Cecile, Iris or even Ralph wouldn’t have listened to her.)
The reconciliation between Nora and Barry also feels a bit too pat. Whether or not you feel that Barry overreacted by unceremoniously returning his daughter to the future, there’s also the issue of the fact that Nora did work with Thawne and lied about it, even after she knew who he was.
Sure, maybe Barry realizes he wants to try for Dad of the Year, but that also doesn’t absolve Nora of her mistakes, nor does it really explain what she and Thawne were trying to do in the first place. (Or why she ran right back to him in The Flash Season 5 Episode 19, “Snow Pack,” either.)
As with so many The Flash stories in recent seasons, it feels like this one counts on a combination of affection for these characters and general tiredness with this particular element of the plot to carry the day.
Basically, I give up.
In other horrible news, the Cicada plot returns, and we learn that Grace 2.0 is making some kind of weapon out of the ice McGuffin from last week that Icicle stole.
Her evil plan is apparently to use this device to strip all metas of their powers, despite the fact that she’s a meta herself and will essentially write herself out of existence. Maybe?
This show really needs to stop messing with time travel.
Stray Thoughts and Observations
- There’s absolutely no way that this brilliant plan of Thawne’s to stop Cicada doesn’t benefit him in some way. Is Cicada the reason he’s in jail in the future? That’d be a fun twist.
- Again, I have to ask, how are the West-Allens planning to keep Nora in 2019 without completely destroying the timeline that creates her in the first place??
- Honestly please let us never see Ragdoll again, everything about him makes me want to throw up. Ugh.
- It was nice that The Flash sort of remembered that Caitlin’s going through some stuff after last week and had three different people ask her if she’s okay.
- What a difference a year makes — Ralph taking Caitlin out to try and help her grieve was so sweet, and honestly the action of a good friend. Where was that guy in Season 4?
- The romance fakeout between them was genuinely upsetting, but I suppose it’s good that the show threw it out there and shot it down.
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.