The Flash: Godspeed

April 17, 2019 10:25 AM - Season 5, Episode 18

Barry and Iris disagree about how to handle their daughter after discovering Nora's secret. Team Flash isn't sure they can trust Nora, so they go through her journal to find out exactly how she came to work alongside their greatest nemesis.

AV Club: Nora's origin story is revealed in a Flash-forward episode, with mixed results

posted by numaner (12 comments total)

Only this show could give us a flashback that’s also a flashforward. Wonderfully done.
posted by Servo5678 at 11:12 AM on April 17, 2019 [2 favorites]

I really enjoyed the future stuff, but I can't believe they fridged another woman for... a heroine.

The Godspeed guy was so-so, but his all white speedster outfit was cool. Speaking of, basically all the villains based their speed suit design off the original Flash outfit? With the lightning bolt and such? No points for originality to any of them.

Two more episodes left, I wonder if future-Cicada will be defeated in this season or lingers into the next.
posted by numaner at 12:28 PM on April 17, 2019 [2 favorites]

Oh I forgot to note: This episode was directed by Danielle Panabaker, aka Caitlin!
posted by numaner at 12:34 PM on April 17, 2019 [2 favorites]

I gotta say, I was impressed with Danielle Panabaker's first outing as a director; nothing revolutionary but all perfectly solid. Some really nice callbacks/parallels to Barry's origin story here as well.

Sadly the thing that basically ruined the episode for me was the ending, with Barry being a complete and utter dumbass and unilaterally deciding to force Nora to return to the future. (And now he can apparently sense it if she tries to return? What? Maybe he was just bullshitting her about that, like the classic parental "if you misbehave I'll know", but otherwise, when the hell did he get that power?) I like to dream of a version of The Flash where the prime plot-mover is not "Barry being an idiot", but sadly that's almost never been the show we actually have.
posted by mstokes650 at 12:35 PM on April 17, 2019 [6 favorites]

not to abuse the edit button: It's hard to compare any show to the incredibly smart writing of Black Sails, and it's basically totally unfair to compare a relatively lighthearted CW superhero show like The Flash to Black Sails, but A.) I really do miss having a show where the plot is driven by smart characters outsmarting each other, instead of dumb characters being dumb, and B.) once I realized that I had previously seen Jessica Parker Kennedy, who plays Nora, as Max on Black Sails (it took me a long time to make the connection, they're such extremely different characters!) it just made it extra hard to not make the comparison.
posted by mstokes650 at 12:44 PM on April 17, 2019 [3 favorites]

I'm pretty much here with the rest of you:

* Danielle Panabaker did a great job.
* The narrative framing was good except the fridging.
* Barry is terrible.

it's basically totally unfair to compare a relatively lighthearted CW superhero show like The Flash to Black Sails, but

Nah, I get ya. I don't think it's crazy to do this sort of thing to understand why we do or do not like stuff, fair or not.

Personally, I keep comparing The Flash to Legends of Tomorrow instead, especially since they've been known to cross over. Based on that, I know it's totally reasonable to ask for better without the show being any less silly or low budget. The main trick seems to be: make me like the characters. I like everybody over on LoT, (even Nate, though it took him awhile).

I do not like Barry. Full stop. He's a thoughtless jerk, and it's a depiction I am extra frustrated with because I'm used to The Flash having his act together, (Diniverse, new Justice League animated continuity, etc.).
posted by mordax at 1:20 PM on April 17, 2019 [4 favorites]

Sherloque was absolutely right in keeping quiet until he had all of the vidence about Nora in hand, especially with the way Iris was being so overprotective whenever he got too close. The rest of the team had no business coming down so hard on him. They are the ones in the wrong.

Nora was a much more likeable and less annoying character in her own timeline where she didn't feel the need to play cute and helpless. Her CSI co-worker/friend also seemed like a great potential new character, and it was a waste to fridge her.

I don't understand the countdown clock. The second (I think) time Nora visited Thawne it was already down to an hour and change. I know she's a speedster, but even taking that into consideration, I don't think she would have had enough time to make multiple visits and learn the speedster language before Thawne's time ran out.

It was nice to see Cavanagh dig his acting chops into something a bit meatier than he has been able to do with Sherloque recently. Both he and Parker Kennedy gave strong performances this episode, and Panabaker did a really good job with her directing debut. I'd be happy to see her take charge again.
posted by sardonyx at 8:44 PM on April 17, 2019 [1 favorite]

Yeah, I don't get the countdown clock at all. Is it one year left? One minute? What the fuck is it?

I enjoyed the episode, though was sad to see her friend die. Flashforwarding delights me in general

I presume Nora has a membership to the Flash museum since she seems to live there.

Barry is sweet but stupid. Imagine how he would have grounded Nora had he raised her. Well, about like this, I guess. But that said, I can totally buy him being super mad that she continued to hang with Thawne after knowing he murdered her grandmother. That's a legit reason to be mad, bro.
posted by jenfullmoon at 10:46 PM on April 17, 2019

I assume by the time Barry was done talking, Thawne's time was up, especially given that he seemed to be eating his last meal, aka Bill Belly Burger take-out. That's why I made the assumption I did about only having an hour-plus left when Nora spoke with him.

Again, if Thawne still had his powers, an hour would be plenty of time to super-speed teach Nora everything she needed to know, but what good would it do her to be able to absorb everything at super speed if Thawne could only communicate like a regular person? It wouldn't. So I stand by my original assertion than an hour-and-a-half just wasn't long enough for her education.
posted by sardonyx at 12:04 PM on April 18, 2019 [1 favorite]

The name on the laundry truck that Nora crashed into was Gambi & Sons. That might be a shout-out to Black Lightning, but it is also the name on the laundry truck that Barry crashed into when he first ran at speed.
posted by plastic_animals at 1:57 PM on April 18, 2019 [6 favorites]

Thanks for posting the thread, numaner. For some reason, on the NJ CW channel this episode was postponed from the usual timeslot until Saturday night, just watched it this morning.

I don't understand the countdown clock either; I'm pretty fuzzy on how long Thawne is supposed to have been imprisoned (or why he'd be subject to routine torture -- presumably the purpose in the episode was to give Nora a reason to feel sympathetic towards Thawne, but are we to believe that daily electric shocks are part of his prison sentence?). But it was an entertaining enough episode, and at least the 'Nora has a secret' portion of the season is done. Now I just wonder if she'll find there have been any ripple effect changes to 2049 from what she's been up to in the past.

*Den of Geek recap - Godspeed makes his debut, Nora's origin story is revealed, and The Flash delivers an excellent episode to set the stage for the finale.
posted by oh yeah! at 12:41 PM on April 21, 2019 [2 favorites]

I think the first few times we saw the countdown clock it was in hours? I could be wrong. But it seems like Nora kept returning to him within minutes of when she was last there, and in the meantime he's watching how she's changing history on his device in the cell (which is a huge no-no for such a dangerous criminal). I would think he taught her some basics for the language and she spent time learning his writings and how to do it on her own.
posted by numaner at 1:03 PM on April 22, 2019