S05.E16: Failure is an Orphan

[RedVitC]

Enjoyed the episode a lot:

-west-allen family for the win! Those were some great scenes. While I did sort of agree with Nora that the timing of Iris'  requests was a bit off, I loved the sentiment of the storyline. And I love it when those three have cute/sweet scenes together. More please

-I'm not really against Cicada, and don't think he's quite as bad, but the way he drew out his - every single one of you- in the cortex, made me laugh. It seemed so unnecessary. I like that the new versions seems to have more powers and is from the future. I love time travel things so adding another character from the future is great for me, lol, I remember Sarah Carter from Falling Skies 

-About Zack's tweets: I could take or leave that joke, but Barry singing to Iris and Nora? That would have been the best!

-Anyway, I continue to love Nora. Glad she joined this season

-That was a great heart to heart between Joe and Barry, but it wouldn't have taken much to make it even better. Just have Barry mention Iris when he gave his advice about making each other better. It seemed like such a logical connection that I was surprised when he didn't. Though I felt he was thinking about her in that moment.

-I know in the past people liked to complain that Iris was always giving Barry 'peptalks'  (never me though, and I call them heart to hearts thank you very much 😋), but I miss the Barry and Iris heart to hearts! Though technically it's only been 4 episodes since we got one/several (ep 12 was the last one I think?). I know some people think that's because of Nora, and while of course there is only so much time and a Nora-Iris heart to heart means there probably won't be time for another heart to heart etc, I think it also has to do with their new way of structuring episodes (and also Barry having more one on one chats with different characters in general this season). It has its pros and cons.

I think the way they've structured plots and subplots has helped a lot with managing the large cast, but because a lot of the times the subplots are so separated (not always, last night's episode did a pretty good job of integrating all the plots) when characters are not in the same subplot they don't really talk about their issue to a character outside of their subplot.

The characters that are grouped together  sometimes don't even interact much with characters in the other group (again in episodes like last night that wasn't an issue. Joe and Barry talked despite being part of different subplots). I prefer it when Iris is Barry's main confidante, but for them to talk they need to be in the same subplot. For example 5x15, In a previous season even if Iris wasn't overly involved with the main plot with King Shark and was working through her fears with Joe we would have still probably gotten a quick moment of them discussing the cure issue or a quick moment of Iris and Barry discussing Iris' fears. 

-I love how being parents has expanded both Barry and Iris as characters, but especially Iris (since Barry has always gotten a lot of different material). And just in general I think we've been getting great solo Iris material this season.

Edited March 13, 2019 by RedVitC

[Writing Wrongs]

13 hours ago, thuganomics85 said:

Especially since she is played by Sarah Carter, who I always enjoy (still remember first seeing her as Alicia Baker on Smallville.) 

I was excited to see her name in the credits.

[Writing Wrongs]

10 hours ago, rmontro said:

Speaking of women, I recently read that Jessica Parker Kennedy, the actress who plays Nora, is 34 years old!  I would have sworn that she was about 17 lol!  In fact, I would occasionally feel kind of guilty for thinking she was kind of cute.  I guess it was all right after all.

I have seen her in all her *ahem* glory on Black Sails, which is why I have a hard time seeing her as naive, innocent Nora.

[mrspidey]

I'm confused. Was it supposed to be unclear who future Cicada is? I thought they made it quite clear in the mindwalk episode. 

[jay741982]

13 hours ago, Jediknight said:

She was Alicia in Smallville.  She did a good job, it's just too bad that her character got that horrible payoff.

It's becoming a weekly thing, but seriously Flash, you guys got Chris Klein, while Supergirl got Sam freaking Witwer?  Every week it just becomes a bigger disparity in acting and quality of character (that's due to the actor, Witwer gets more do than stand around).

I'm still mad at how Smallville did Alicia. She was a breath of fresh air and I thought she had more chem with Clark and was hoping at the least they would redeem her, Clark could date her for a time, then they went their Separate ways, not bring her back to be redeemed then framed and Murdered. I was angry when that went down lol

[jay741982]

2 hours ago, Writing Wrongs said:

I was excited to see her name in the credits.

Same. I liked her in Smallville and Falling Skies. And I'm not gonna lie I found her VERY Attractive and IMO her voice is sexy AND I think shes a better actor than Chris Klein though I like him from the American Pie movies. Plus Gracada already is more dangerous than her Uncle though I cant stand People who blame ALL of a race/Gender/powered/Non-powered group of people for their probelm

[cambridgeguy]

4 hours ago, SimoneS said:

Nora is definitely changing the future. Not that Team Flash seems to care. However, she is sending Thawne data constantly which allows him to monitor what she is doing and manipulate the past so she isn't likely to change anything that impacts him negatively. I still don't understand why Nora thinks that Thawne could or wants to stop Cicada. We will find out soon enough.

Ever since we found out that Nora has been working Thawne, I have been convinced that she will erase herself out of existence or die trying to stop Thawne from killing Barry. I will stick with those predictions. The show wants us to be empathetic towards Nora, but the way this story has been written, she just comes off as a fool who deserves what she is about to get.

I am going to chalk up the technology in Thawne's cell along with Nora dashing in and out at will to Iron Heights' notoriously lax security.

To be fair, the self appointed guardians of time (the Time Bureau) and the Frank Drebin guardians of time (the Legends) don't seem to be particularly inclined to do anything so why should team Flash care? 

[adora721]

4 hours ago, cambridgeguy said:

so why should team Flash care? 

Reasons to care about breaking the timeline:

• Dante's death precipitated by Flashpoint
• Sara Diggle changed to John Diggle Jr. by Flashpoint
• Creation of Barry's time remnant as murderous Savitar, which lead to the murder of HR Wells
• Creation of E1 Killer Frost
• Orlin Dwyer being Cicada instead of  David Hirsch
• Nora erasing herself

Edited March 13, 2019 by adora721

[RedVitC]

Eh, I prefer the show's  looser take on time travel consequences than what they had before (even if they're not being consistent).  I know it's a different show, but If the legends can go back to the past, change events , kill goons before their time,

Spoiler

and even change what happened with Amaya's village (a change supposedly so big it ruptured some kind of veil to the other world)

 with zero changes to the arrowverse as we know it

Spoiler

Yes creatures from the other realm came into our world, but the timeline itself didn't change at all. Especially not in the completely random, nothing at all to do with the event that was changed, ways that flashpoint changed things. 

, I don't see why Nora and other characters on the Flash shouldn't be able to have a little fun time traveling. This is not a knock on legends btw, I much prefer their just have fun with time travel approach to the every little change will change something else even if it literally has nothing to do with it approach.  it's just the different rules for time travel on both shows is something that gets to me, lol 

Edited March 13, 2019 by RedVitC

[SimoneS]

I don't watch any of the other CW DC superhero shows so what they do is irrelevant to me. I care about what The Flash does. The show has banged on and on about the dangers of careless time travel, only to toss all that out the window this season for Nora's story. It is laziness on the part of the writers and worse undermines the premise of the show. After all, if time travelling and altering the timeline isn't a big deal, Barry should be zipping back in time or to the future to figure out how to defeat all his villains. Of course, if Barry did this, the episodes would be over in five minutes. Although thinking about it, we would not have had to suffer through Devoe last season.

One of the characteristics that I have always admired about Barry is that he has grown as a hero. He took Jay's advice to heart that he wasn't going to keep time travelling to fix his mistakes, he would not be the kind of hero that just took a do over every time he made a mistake and that he would live with them and move forward. This doesn't mean that I think that he should just sit there and let preventable events unfold. He was right to do what what it took to save Iris' life when he found out that Savitar was going to kill her. And Team Flash should take action to try to stop Barry from disappearing. But after learning to live with his parents' deaths and the consequences of creating a new timeline, it is very out of character to see Barry just swan around and ignore the fact that Nora's time travelling is messing up timeline, destroying lives in the process. Grace is in that coma because of Nora. A child already orphaned whose life has been further destroyed. Why doesn't Barry care? Why isn't Nora guilt-ridden? It really does bug me.

Edited March 14, 2019 by SimoneS

[rmontro]

5 hours ago, Writing Wrongs said:

I have seen her in all her *ahem* glory on Black Sails, which is why I have a hard time seeing her as naive, innocent Nora.

When you get to be my age, everybody looks young.

(Rmontro switches TV to Starz)

🙂

[adora721]

2 hours ago, SimoneS said:

The show has banged on and on about the dangers of careless time travel, only to toss all that out the window this season for Nora's story. It is laziness on the part of the writers and worse undermines the premise of the show. After all, if time travelling and altering the timeline isn't a big deal, Barry should be zipping back in time or to the future to figure out how to defeat all his villains.

Totally agree with the above. It completely erases the stakes that they've developed for the past four seasons. Barry only spent three months in Flashpoint, and look at the damage that caused.

Think back to the great "Enter Flashtime" episode in which Barry chose to not time travel to stop a nuclear bomb from killing everyone in the city, not to mention killing the remaining populace with radiation afterwards.

If stopping a nuclear holocaust isn't a good enough reason to time travel, then hanging out with your parents for nine months isn't a good reason either.

[Terrafamilia]

Here I thought New Cicada was a projection from Grace's subconscious which we first saw in that journey to the center of her mind.

[SimoneS]

36 minutes ago, adora721 said:

Totally agree with the above. It completely erases the stakes that they've developed for the past four seasons. Barry only spent three months in Flashpoint, and look at the damage that caused.

Think back to the great "Enter Flashtime" episode in which Barry chose to not time travel to stop a nuclear bomb from killing everyone in the city, not to mention killing the remaining populace with radiation afterwards.

If stopping a nuclear holocaust isn't a good enough reason to time travel, then hanging out with your parents for nine months isn't a good reason either.

Exactly. And since the show's new premise is that time travel isn't a big deal any more and Barry's new priority is spending time with Nora, the least he could do is go back in time and stop the satellite shards from hitting Grace and Orlin before he goes swanning off on vaca with Nora and Iris. 

This all could have been avoided if the writers had just put some thought into the Nora story. A shard could have been deeply embedded into Nora when she hit the satellite causing her to lose most of her speed, thus preventing her from travelling to the back to the future. Until Team Flash figured out how to remove the shard, there would be nothing that a concerned Barry could do even as he spent time with her and worked to minimize her disruption of the timeline. Nora could still use Gideon to communicate with Thawne.

[Cthulhudrew]

18 hours ago, AnimeMania said:

One logical inconsistency on the show. Cicada's power is to stop other Metas from using their Meta powers. Barry says that his "Flash" powers started working again after Cicada was given the cure. Before this, Cecile uses her Meta powers to feel the "rage" in Cicada and excuse herself from the room. Cecile's Meta powers shouldn't have worked since she was standing right next to Barry and his Meta powers didn't work. 

I've come to expect just as much consistency with Cecile's powers as with Killer Frost's. Making her a meta last season didn't seem to serve any narrative purpose other than a joke storyline about married people reading each other's minds (literally in this case), then they decided making her fully telepathic was apparently too much so they downgraded her to empathy, and now it only comes up whenever the writers remember to use the powers (or need to give Cecile a storyline). Keeping it consistent with anything else going on with the rest of the characters is way too much juggling for this crew.

[RobertDeSneero]

Maybe, the return of Cicada in the future is Grace looking for a way to travel in time to prevent the death of her uncle due to a mistake by the doctor, who she kills anyways.

[AnimeMania]

5 hours ago, Terrafamilia said:

Here I thought New Cicada was a projection from Grace's subconscious which we first saw in that journey to the center of her mind.

This is what I thought Lady Cicady was and that giving Grace the Meta "cure" would make Lady Cicady disappear and also bring Grace out of her coma.

I wonder if Lady Cicady killed the doctor because the doctor kept encouraging Orlin to kill Metas or because the doctor ratted out Orlin to the police.

[Trini]

14 hours ago, RedVitC said:

-I know in the past people liked to complain that Iris was always giving Barry 'peptalks'  (never me though, and I call them heart to hearts thank you very much 😋), but I miss the Barry and Iris heart to hearts! Though technically it's only been 4 episodes since we got one/several (ep 12 was the last one I think?). I know some people think that's because of Nora, and while of course there is only so much time and a Nora-Iris heart to heart means there probably won't be time for another heart to heart etc, I think it also has to do with their new way of structuring episodes (and also Barry having more one on one chats with different characters in general this season). It has its pros and cons.

I think the way they've structured plots and subplots has helped a lot with managing the large cast, but because a lot of the times the subplots are so separated (not always, last night's episode did a pretty good job of integrating all the plots) when characters are not in the same subplot they don't really talk about their issue to a character outside of their subplot.

The characters that are grouped together  sometimes don't even interact much with characters in the other group (again in episodes like last night that wasn't an issue. Joe and Barry talked despite being part of different subplots). I prefer it when Iris is Barry's main confidante, but for them to talk they need to be in the same subplot. For example 5x15, In a previous season even if Iris wasn't overly involved with the main plot with King Shark and was working through her fears with Joe we would have still probably gotten a quick moment of them discussing the cure issue or a quick moment of Iris and Barry discussing Iris' fears. 

This is a good observation. I think this structure is a good change for the show overall; but yes, there are pros and cons to it. I do appreciate that there have been less scenes where everyone is in the Cortex (and half of them doing nothing), and that it kept the Killer Frost arc away from the West-Allen family arcs. But then the downside is less (or no) communication between characters who would normally interact.

I think it they could improve the new formula by making sure that key relationships (Barry's) are prioritized, and that there is at least one connecting thread or common theme between the separate plots. I think Stentz did a great job with both those tasks in this episode.

[RedVitC]

The whole thing with changing who Cicada is because of Nora is definitely bothersome and it's strange they haven't talked about her guilt beyond the episode she found out,

As for Nora just being there I think they went with fixed points versus non fixed points to explain why her just being there is not changing as much as you'd expect. Barry's mother dying is a fixed point which is why changing that causes lots of consequences, and now that I think about it that might have something to do with how random some of the changes from flashpoint were. Things that are not fixed points can be changed without affecting much else outside of that thing that is changed. At least that's how I understand what they set up for time travel this season

Now, of course, they're not very consistent with it. The episode where Sherloque meets Irene (?) kind of speaks against that. So yeah that's too bad there wasn't more thought put into that.

While I personally would also have preferred if they kept the story where Nora couldn't go back to the future rather than they let her stay, I'm glad they set up the fixed point versus non fixed point system to be more relaxed about time travel, even if it doesn't really cover everything (like how now history will remember another West working at the precinct or that there was another speedster working with the Flash). I just want them to be more consistent  about fixed points (aka either non-fixed points don't change much or the butterfly effect works on everything like in the ep with Irene).

But... I like time travel and future stories and I want to see more of it and not less, travel to the past, travel to the future, characters interacting with future self shenanigans, all of it, so yeah, I still prefer a more relaxed approach to time travel consequences  (even though I hadn't really considered how  jarring it is that they haven't further explored Grace being in a coma because of Nora also punching the satellite. I suspect that might come up now that we've seen the older version of Grace. Plus more discussion on timeline stuff after they find Nora's working with Thawne to save Barry.)

I'm guessing Barry disappearing is a fixed point so we'll see what consequences that has. But since we won't see whether that happens until next season I'm not sure how Nora's storyline will or could even wrap up this season.

(Having said all this, here's a little bit of my own inconsistency: despite wanting a more relaxed approach, it still annoys me a little that Barry's mom couldn't be saved even though Barry's mom dying is a change from the real timeline and saving her should be considered correcting the change Thawne made to the timeline. If we're talking about consequences, what about all the people whose lives where changed for the worse because of that timeline change? What about all the people who became a meta/died in this timeline who wouldn't have otherwise because the particle accelerator exploded 7 years too soon? It shouldn't be a fixed point, but somehow it is/became one)

[Trini]

If anyone one wanted to read the rest of that list:

[ottoDbusdriver]

1 hour ago, Trini said:

If anyone one wanted to read the rest of that list:

Teach Nora to Drive -- isn't she in her late 20s ?  Do they not have cars in 2049 ?

[adora721]

11 minutes ago, ottoDbusdriver said:

Teach Nora to Drive -- isn't she in her late 20s ?  Do they not have cars in 2049 ?

What does a speedster need with a car? For grocery shopping?

[Brinny]

1 hour ago, ottoDbusdriver said:

Teach Nora to Drive -- isn't she in her late 20s ?  Do they not have cars in 2049 ?

I speculated on this already, but my guess is that 2049 is all self-driving cars. I mean in 2019 we have cars that parallel park for us and they’re testing the market with hands free driving already, so that would make sense. 

The flaw with this theory, of course, is if she’s going back to the future, she won’t need this skill. So....maybe Nora just never learned to drive? It’s possible. 

Come to think of it, does Barry know how to drive? We know he doesn’t have a car (and we’ve seen him take public transit before he had/when he lost his powers), but I don’t think we’ve ever seen him drive. Iris drives. Maybe she’s gonna teach both of them?

Edited March 15, 2019 by Brinny
I’m ahead a whole year apparently. It is NOT 2020

[Trini]

1 hour ago, Brinny said:

Come to think of it, does Barry know how to drive? We know he doesn’t have a car (and we’ve seen him take public transit before he had/when he lost his powers), but I don’t think we’ve ever seen him drive. Iris drives. Maybe she’s gonna teach both of them?

I don't remember if they showed a shot of him driving, but in Season 2 he drove to visit his father - I think he didn't have his powers in that episode. And there might have been one or two times in season 1 but I'm really not sure.

[rmontro]

On 3/13/2019 at 11:17 AM, Writing Wrongs said:

I have seen her in all her *ahem* glory on Black Sails, which is why I have a hard time seeing her as naive, innocent Nora.

Speaking of which, I just realized Grant Gustin is 29, and the woman portraying his daughter Nora is 34!  So she is actually older than he is.  You certainly don't see that dynamic on the TV show, he seems to be much older, wiser, and mature.  Like I said, I actually thought she was supposed to be about 17.

[adora721]

On 3/15/2019 at 6:41 PM, rmontro said:

Like I said, I actually thought she was supposed to be about 17.

Nora is written like she's 17 though; even the "Teach Nora to drive" on Iris' list is something to do with a teenager. However, Nora is supposed to be her parents' age. The writers have forgotten this entirely.

But kudos to JPK for looking much younger than her age!

Edited March 17, 2019 by adora721

[MarkHB]

I will love this episode forever just for Thawne saying, "I've charted this timeline from Anthro the first boy to Kamandi the last."

[mac123x]

Cicada 1.0 taking the cure first made little sense to me.  "Cure my Gracie and I'll willing take the cure and go to prison.  If it doesn't work, I'll murder. you. all. [growl]" would be much more logical. 

I thought it'd be pretty funny if, once he was on the operating table and knocked out, Killer Frost had taken over and said "here's your cure -- 20 cc of air directly into your jugular!  Enjoy the embolism, asshole!"

On 3/12/2019 at 10:00 PM, shantown said:

How did Cicada Grace travel back in time? Also how does Nora keep running back and forth in time? Doesn’t anyone wonder where she is? 

I'm embarrassed to admit I didn't think of time travel considering how often this show leans on that crutch.  As soon as Cicada 2.0 showed up, I said "I bet that's Grace and it's probably some kind of astral projection from her comatose child's brain."  Time travel makes more sense.

[AnimeMania]

7 hours ago, mac123x said:

Cicada 1.0 taking the cure first made little sense to me.  "Cure my Gracie and I'll willing take the cure and go to prison.  If it doesn't work, I'll murder. you. all. [growl]" would be much more logical. 

I think it would make for sense for Cicada to say give me the cure first and if it works then give it to Baby Cicady.