The Flash: Snow Pack

April 23, 2019 7:56 PM - Season 5, Episode 19

Icicle returns to enact the next phase of his devious plan, so Caitlin and her mother, Dr. Carla Tannhauser, must resolve their long-combative relationship to defeat the icy monster. After Barry makes a big decision about their family without consulting her, Iris decides to take matters into her own hands.

TV Line Recap: Did a Big Fight KO Barry & Iris? Plus, [Spoiler] Turns Evil

AV Club - A fast and furious hour of The Flash is all about family

posted by oh yeah! (8 comments total)

Started out promising, with Iris deservedly reading Barry the riot act for his being a complete asshole. Unfortunately the rest of the episode everyone else spent time trying to talk Iris down and reinforcing the importance of her and Barry's relationship, in the process all indirectly helping Barry avoid facing any consequences for being such a complete asshole. It had the opposite effect on me; as Iris gradually got less furious at Barry I just got more and more mad at him. I certainly hope Reverse-XS beats the shit out of him, though unfortunately I'm sure he wouldn't even learn his lesson from that, he'd just lay all the blame on Thawne. I'll stick it out to the end of the season I guess but even if there is another season of the Flash I think I'm done; Barry's just become too unlikable for me at this point, and I'm not sure how they even could win me back over.

The Snow-family-drama plot was okay, I guess, though I wish Icicle had a more interesting plan than just "turn my family into monsters like me", it's sort of a cliche at this point. Mostly I was just too busy fuming at Barry to care. Also, while I get the visual appeal of two ice-metas racing around on these ice slides, part of me always wonders what a mess those ice slides make later, when you've got these elaborate roller-coaster-ish structures of ice gradually melting and dropping huge chunks of ice all over the place. I've been wondering about that at least since I was a kid watching Iceman in the X-Men cartoons, and I don't think I've ever seen it addressed.
posted by mstokes650 at 2:08 PM on April 24, 2019 [4 favorites]

I like that the post just below this on the Fanfare front page is “Barry: What?!”
posted by dayintoday at 2:30 PM on April 24, 2019 [6 favorites]

Yup, exactly what you said about Barry, mstokes650. To make matters worse, rather than dumping on Barry, the team ended up dumping on Sherloque. (Once again, I'm defending him, even though I haven't really been a fan of the character.) If they thought Barry was so wrong to give Nora a one-way ticket home, then they should have let him have it, not transfer their anger to somebody else.

I'm not really keen on the introduction of Thawne's personalized speed force/negative force/negative speed force. I can just see this causing an additional layer of "that doesn't make any sense" scenarios into future episodes. The show can barely handle the speed effects and abilities already in existence.

I do have to question this desire to "bring Nora home." I mean this isn't her current timeline. She does have a life and a future in 2049. At some point the West-Allens are going to have to realize that Nora has her own life to lead and it's not here.
posted by sardonyx at 8:46 PM on April 24, 2019 [2 favorites]

I'm honestly not sure why the narrative thinks Barry is right, here, and keep thinking they are going to turn around on that.

There is a 100 legitimate reason to ask Nora to go back to her home timeline - the more you poke the timeline, the more chances for things to go off the rails, and having someone essentially telecommuting from the future is a terrible idea. Apparently, we've given up on that one since the beginning of the season. However, "grounding" Nora for using Thawne as a source has two big flaws: 1) Barry you hypocrite, you have exactly no room to go zero tolerance on that particular lapse, including the whole not telling people part and 2) Nora is an _adult_. Imagine telling your adult daughter "I no longer trust you, so not only am I kicking you out of the house, I will persecute you unless you also permanently move out of state. No, you do not get time to pack, nor can you ever return for any reason." That's such a ludicrous overstep.
posted by Karmakaze at 7:08 AM on April 25, 2019 [2 favorites]

"rather than dumping on Barry, the team ended up dumping on Sherloque" - Danielle Panabaker pretty much said the same thing in her live-tweeting of the episode.

This really should have been 42 minutes of Iris yelling at Barry, both for the catharsis and because Icicle's story needed to play out over more than part of an episode.

It looks like Nora is being set up to sacrifice herself in the finale to take down Cicada and save her parents.
posted by plastic_animals at 10:23 AM on April 25, 2019 [1 favorite]

I think maybe she just loses the ability to time travel somehow so she'd have to stay in the future where she belongs. These shows like to avoid deaths, but they also can't keep characters/actors around for longer they should without making up an awkward reason why they're staying when they were clearly written to be a one-season character.

I missed Ralph and his wing-man/side-kick style. Just there to help you along and not trying to get in your way.
posted by numaner at 11:00 AM on April 25, 2019

The Reverse-XS/Cicada fight better be good. How Barry and Iris save their daughter from her anger and their (esp. Barry's) plot mandated stupidity seems predictable as the writers seem to be good at using all the clichés for these stories. A Reverse-XS and Cicada team-up would be better as the Big Bads for next season but I doubt the network or the writers' room have the stomach to give us the full on evil XS that Sarah Parker Kennedy could deliver.
posted by Ignorantsavage at 4:59 AM on April 26, 2019

I was on the fence about whether or not Thawne was plotting something extra, but his knowing smirk when he tells Nora that his special speed force "gets a little negative" makes me think everything up to now was his long term plan to turn Nora evil.
posted by Servo5678 at 5:51 AM on April 26, 2019