When I found out Todd Helbing was one of the writers for this episode, and Tom Cavanagh was the director, I was pretty confident we would get a good episode. I was hesitant to consider that we may get a great episode since those have been in short supply since season 3; however, that is exactly what we got.
Todd Helbing is one of the best and most prolific writers of great The Flash episodes. It's no wonder he is The Flash's Showrunner. It's just unfortunate that he can't write them all. Oftentimes when he pens an episode, we get a classic with just the right recipe, such as this episode. Its quality above the other seven episodes of season 5 is starkly noticeable, and it's in another league than almost all of the season 4 episodes. It seems, more than any other writer for The Flash, Helbing "gets it"; I only wish the other writers and story editors would get it too.
This episode was not perfect, but man it was good. There was no cartoonish-ness, no lame attempts to make the show a faux-comedy; no soap-opera drama; it was just another excellent episode that contained just the right level octane. One could argue that the reuse of old clips from prior seasons was nothing more than a cheap way to rehash those moments and steal from the glory days of the show, but I think this misses the mark. Time travel is a trademark of The Flash comics, and even though something similar has been done in film and TV before, this episode did it with the same flair and uniqueness that has made the show endure for five seasons, and to great effect. It could have been poorly done, but it wasn't. Helbing, Cavanagh, and company charged back into the rich history of The Flash with great passion and reverence, and it paid off nicely. It was fascinating to see Barry and Nora become flies on the wall as seminal events played out in Barry's past. The way Gustin and Kennedy played these roles as largely unobtrusive observers was spot on.
When they got to Thawne, an already solid episode suddenly exploded into brilliance as Cavanagh reanimated his legendary role. The script was powerful, but so was the powerful acting of the three players Gustin, Kennedy, and Cavanagh. The episode was firing on all cylinders here. As Julian might say: "Brilliant!"
The scene in the time vault with Thawne, Barry, and Nora was certainly one of the tensest and more commanding scenes than we've seen on The Flash in a very long time. It was refreshing to see. It reminded me of how the show used to make me feel on a pretty regular basis during seasons 1-3. Remember when we used to feel this way almost every other episode on The Flash?
This week again, Blake Neely and Nathaniel Blume did a fantastic job with the musical score. They found a sweet spot, updating classic score pieces from the early seasons, evoking comfort and fondness from earlier episodes, yet making them fresh at the same time. The score added just the just the right touch to make the scenes sparkle. Bravo.
I only have a couple of things that in my mind that kept the episode from being even greater. The most glaring thing was the appearance of the speedsters when traveling through time. In my opinion, the fake running needs to be replaced with the players actually running (I noticed Cavanagh did this for the race between Nora and Barry, and it looked great). Surely this cannot be more expensive to do this? This was one of the good little subtle things about season 1: Gustin actually ran then, and it just looked so much better.
The other point is minor. I felt great satisfaction when the team had, for all intents and purposes, defeated Cicada. It feels so good to see Barry win. But then, victory was snatched away once again, only to see Cicada escape. It seems it might have been a bit more fulfilling for the audience to actually see Barry and his team defeat Cicada and take him into custody. This would have given everyone a great sense of victory (and then in the back half, perhaps he could have escaped; it's not as if meta-humans haven't escaped from custody before). I think it's important to let Barry win, but I can live with how it went down. It was cool to see that Cicada is not so easily defeated. This did have a way of letting us know that he is quite powerful beyond what Barry and his team imagined. Cisco cannot be faulted for thinking he had sufficiently breached the dagger. The true connection between Cicada and that dagger was a surprise both to Team Flash and the audience.
The ending of the episode certainly suppressed any minor, nit-picky qualms I had with the episode. We already had suspicions that Nora was working with someone, and the ending of the episode slammed it into our faces in a powerful way. This was the best cliff hanger in a long time on this show. Well done.
This episode, with all its grand moments, and the powerful ending certainly have us wanting more. This is what every great episode does. It impels us to want to see more with great anticipation; we want to see how this grand imaginary world in which we're indulging advances to the next chapter. This episode also gave us hope; it gave hope to every long-time fan of The Flash, hope that this show can once again rock. This episode certainly rocked.
My score: 9.3/10 Grade: A
Todd Helbing is one of the best and most prolific writers of great The Flash episodes. It's no wonder he is The Flash's Showrunner. It's just unfortunate that he can't write them all. Oftentimes when he pens an episode, we get a classic with just the right recipe, such as this episode. Its quality above the other seven episodes of season 5 is starkly noticeable, and it's in another league than almost all of the season 4 episodes. It seems, more than any other writer for The Flash, Helbing "gets it"; I only wish the other writers and story editors would get it too.
This episode was not perfect, but man it was good. There was no cartoonish-ness, no lame attempts to make the show a faux-comedy; no soap-opera drama; it was just another excellent episode that contained just the right level octane. One could argue that the reuse of old clips from prior seasons was nothing more than a cheap way to rehash those moments and steal from the glory days of the show, but I think this misses the mark. Time travel is a trademark of The Flash comics, and even though something similar has been done in film and TV before, this episode did it with the same flair and uniqueness that has made the show endure for five seasons, and to great effect. It could have been poorly done, but it wasn't. Helbing, Cavanagh, and company charged back into the rich history of The Flash with great passion and reverence, and it paid off nicely. It was fascinating to see Barry and Nora become flies on the wall as seminal events played out in Barry's past. The way Gustin and Kennedy played these roles as largely unobtrusive observers was spot on.
When they got to Thawne, an already solid episode suddenly exploded into brilliance as Cavanagh reanimated his legendary role. The script was powerful, but so was the powerful acting of the three players Gustin, Kennedy, and Cavanagh. The episode was firing on all cylinders here. As Julian might say: "Brilliant!"
The scene in the time vault with Thawne, Barry, and Nora was certainly one of the tensest and more commanding scenes than we've seen on The Flash in a very long time. It was refreshing to see. It reminded me of how the show used to make me feel on a pretty regular basis during seasons 1-3. Remember when we used to feel this way almost every other episode on The Flash?
This week again, Blake Neely and Nathaniel Blume did a fantastic job with the musical score. They found a sweet spot, updating classic score pieces from the early seasons, evoking comfort and fondness from earlier episodes, yet making them fresh at the same time. The score added just the just the right touch to make the scenes sparkle. Bravo.
I only have a couple of things that in my mind that kept the episode from being even greater. The most glaring thing was the appearance of the speedsters when traveling through time. In my opinion, the fake running needs to be replaced with the players actually running (I noticed Cavanagh did this for the race between Nora and Barry, and it looked great). Surely this cannot be more expensive to do this? This was one of the good little subtle things about season 1: Gustin actually ran then, and it just looked so much better.
The other point is minor. I felt great satisfaction when the team had, for all intents and purposes, defeated Cicada. It feels so good to see Barry win. But then, victory was snatched away once again, only to see Cicada escape. It seems it might have been a bit more fulfilling for the audience to actually see Barry and his team defeat Cicada and take him into custody. This would have given everyone a great sense of victory (and then in the back half, perhaps he could have escaped; it's not as if meta-humans haven't escaped from custody before). I think it's important to let Barry win, but I can live with how it went down. It was cool to see that Cicada is not so easily defeated. This did have a way of letting us know that he is quite powerful beyond what Barry and his team imagined. Cisco cannot be faulted for thinking he had sufficiently breached the dagger. The true connection between Cicada and that dagger was a surprise both to Team Flash and the audience.
The ending of the episode certainly suppressed any minor, nit-picky qualms I had with the episode. We already had suspicions that Nora was working with someone, and the ending of the episode slammed it into our faces in a powerful way. This was the best cliff hanger in a long time on this show. Well done.
This episode, with all its grand moments, and the powerful ending certainly have us wanting more. This is what every great episode does. It impels us to want to see more with great anticipation; we want to see how this grand imaginary world in which we're indulging advances to the next chapter. This episode also gave us hope; it gave hope to every long-time fan of The Flash, hope that this show can once again rock. This episode certainly rocked.
My score: 9.3/10 Grade: A