The Flash Review: The Girl with the Red Lightning (Season 5 Episode 21)
The pieces for the season finale slide into place on The Flash Season 5 Episode 21, “The Girl with the Red Lightning,” but this overstuffed episode somehow still manages to feel like its treading water.
The most interesting pieces of this story are — as we all probably predicted — the revelation that Eobard Thawne does of course have an Evil Plan, and that Nora and Team Flash appear to be playing right into it.
Plus side: This twist promises a much more exciting season finale and final Big Bad than we would other wise get from just Cicada 2.0. Thawne has always been the best villain the show’s ever had. (And Cicada, as we’ve noted many times prior to now, is terrible.)
The problem, however, is that The Flash has wasted so much time elsewhere in this story that this all inevitably feels overly condensed and rushed. And it really doesn’t need to.
Couldn’t we have seen Ralph figuring out Thawne’s plan last week, instead of wasting an entire episode on Nora pretending to turn evil? Or giving us more than one episode with Thawne as Big Bad?
Why did we have to switch Cicadas at all, if all roads were leading to the removal of the magic dagger from the timeline?
Honestly, this show is its own worst enemy sometimes.
The Thawne twist, thought predictable, still works precisely because the Arrowverse has put in the work to make this whole thing believable. Of course, Eobard Thawne is untrustworthy. Obviously, Nora’s whole trip back to the past has been a season long set up of everyone around him.
That’s exactly the kind of character he is. And the fact that we have all seen this coming pretty much from the moment it was revealed Nora was working with him is part of the reason why it’s such a delicious twist.
The Flash doesn’t seem to understand that, though. Over the course of the season, we’ve watched virtually the same Cicada fight play out roughly a dozen times over two versions of the character.
We’ve listened to Iris, Barry and Nora have the same family-focused argument over and over again, as the West-Allens try to adjust to being parents generally, and specifically to a daughter who is not exactly a child.
In “The Girl with the Red Lightning,” Barry and Iris finally seem to realize that Nora both has and deserves her own agency, and that constantly doing things to “protect her” is as ineffectual as it was back when Joe was trying to pull the same tricks on them.
As for Cicada, this particular villain has never lived up to his own hype, in either incarnation. The original idea behind this villain — a terrifying meta human serial killer who was never caught — had a distinctly creepy, Jack the Ripper vibe.
One which The Flash never really did anything with, sadly.
Orlin Dwyer was little more than a poor man’s Bane, with a sob story background about hating metas grafted on top. (Plus, his awful voice!)
When the Cicada mantle passed to his niece, The Flash did even less with the character, infusing her with her uncle’s meta-hatred and little else.
Grace spends most of her time this week spouting incomprehensible technobabble about the virus diffuser she’s building and having the same exact fight with Team Flash she had a couple weeks back.
Why should we, as viewers have any interest in who she is or what she wants? The show itself can barely bring itself to give her motivations in the first place!
How many times can we watch another scene in which it appears that the good guys are about to win, only to learn that Cicada’s been one step ahead of them the whole time? Or that she is an almost indestructible fighter who loves throwing Barry and friends into walls?
Ever since Sherloque revealed Nora’s secret connection to Thawne, Season 5 has been on something of an upswing, suddenly telling a story driven by emotional development rather than narrative necessity.
The conflicts between Nora, her parents and the rest of Team Flash felt genuine. Putting Barry and Iris at odds over what to do about their daughter felt like a natural evolution of the story. And though Nora’s repeated waffling about her relationship with Thawne at least made sense, even if her decisions were frustrating ones.
Basically, that was all pretty much the opposite of what’s happening right now. Now, The Flash resurrects Nora’s mindscape connection to young Grace to track down Cicada, a plot point that would work a lot better if they hadn’t dropped it completely six episodes ago.
There’s also a weird implication that Nora’s brush with darkness was never even about her and her anger at all – the red lightning was simply some kind of offshoot of Grace’s rage?
This, of course, also doesn’t make any sense, but provides a convenient way to handwave past many of the interesting emotional issues the show raised for Nora in the past couple of episodes. Which, at this point, we’re probably all fine with, because we’re tired of trying to figure it all out.
At least the season finale promises to be interesting – if maybe a bit overpacked with villains to take down. Will Thawne — who’s clearly about to escape prison — stick around until Season 6? Place your bets.
Stray Thoughts and Observations
- Ending the episode with that half-finished shot of Ralph yelling looked terrible. I mean, I get what they were going for, but it just looked like someone accidentally deleted something.
- It’s also a bit strange after the extended debate about whether Nora can be trusted that filled the past few episodes, suddenly everyone believes in her and has no doubts about her motives. Whiplash, y’all.
- So…I guess the show is just never going to explain how Thawne is a.) alive or b.) why he looks like Tom Cavanagh again? Cool. Cool cool cool.
- Also guess we’re just never going to have that series-wide discussion about whether the metahuman cure is a good thing to have around in the first place, huh?
- Joe’s entire subplot this week was kind of pointless, but at least he got to give what was basically the whole city a pep talk instead of just Barry or Iris.
- What even are Grace’s powers?
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: The Girl with the Red Lightning (Season 5 Episode 21)”
I agree with this entire review, especially with Cicada and the pointless tease of Nora going evil, what was the point of seeing her with those red eyes if she was faking it the entire time. Even though I have found some enjoyment in this season, there is just so much that bugs me that maybe depending on how the season ends, this might be the least rewatchable season of The Flash. I’m fine with the fact that Nora stuck around the whole season, I just feel like someone should have brought up the fact that the longer she stays the more she changes the timeline, they definitely did bring that stuff up with Barry when he time traveled. Well here’s hoping that Thawne can help end the season on a high note.
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