The Flash 5x01 "Nora" Episode Review
Major Spoilers are included in this episode Review. Read with Caution.
The first of the Arrowverse has returned! I’m excited to dive into this but not as excited as Nora West-Allen (“XS”). She is such a fun addition to the main cast and her dynamic with Barry is so natural—downright adorable. The same can’t be said about her relationship with Iris, but that will get dealt with as the season progresses.
Jessica Parker Kennedy is fitting in nicely despite my reserves of having yet another character added to the crowded main cast. She’s the soft reboot the show needed.
Sometimes The Flash has a hard time juggling their characters around.
Wally West is also underused and has no real place on the show. It’s sad that the writers can’t figure him out and had to move him to Legends of Tomorrow to give him purpose. Even that gig wasn’t long-lasting as he is not planning on returning to them either. This is the actor’s decision to leave, but before that, writing him a storyline was a downright mess after he got his powers.
Everyone else is doing fairly well. Cisco got too drunk over his breakup with Gypsy and Ralph is helping Caitlin figure out her past as Killer Frost and father being alive. I also enjoyed how Ralph is learning time travel and multiverse… “Earth 2” not “Earth too” Ralph… he is going to get fantastic character development.
Meta-human of the week was not strong. They really could’ve wrote “the plane is crashing” without a meta-human being involved and it would’ve turned out the same. However, I guess we needed one to set up the Big Bad of Season Five. NOT A SPEEDSTER!
Cicada is similar to a lot of other Arrowverse Big Bads… Personal vendetta and murder spree sounds about right, but not a speedster! That’s good… ? I’m hoping once The Flash concludes or goes far enough, we’ll get Eobard Thawne again at some point.
After all, we have to address The Crisis at some point. Yes, we’re back to how The Flash goes missing after a battle against the Reverse Flash. Nora reveals that Barry never returns home and Iris had to raise the baby on her own. Barry misses all of his daughter’s firsts and it broke him to learn he ended up like his parents essentially.
This turn of events convinces him to keep her in the present… which is clunky at best on how they address the ramifications. Wally explains using “Legends” logic about soft changes and hard changes to the timeline… I don’t know, Rip Hunter explained it somewhat better in the first season… but Nora’s presence will not affect things?
Barry doesn’t care about timelines or the consequences—let’s just roll with that. Yeah?
I mean, Nora already spilled on future events like King Shark vs Grodd, Lightning Lad, and many others I can’t recall at the moment. Comment and help me out.