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Nora’s story takes a very, ahem, ‘negative’ turn in the latest Flash
Last week’s episode ended with Barty banishing Nora back to her future, and the fallout from that decision came hot and heavy once Iris found out. Over five seasons, this was likely the most heated episode of The Flash to date.
Spoilers ahead for “Snow Pack,” the latest episode of The CW’s Flash, which aired Tuesday, April 23, 2019.
That fight was something else. No, not the mid-air ice battle — I'm talking about the one between Barry and Iris. Though it's delved into darkness on more than one occasion, Flash has always been on the lighter side of the Arrowverse spectrum. Because of that, we’ve rarely seen the super couple of Barry and Iris fight. Sure, they’ve disagreed before, but this was something else. There was true anger, true betrayal, and both of them only dug their heels in deeper when the accusations started flying. It was hard to watch, in the best way possible. This has made for one of the most emotional seasons yet, and that fight was the payoff that’d been building since fans found out Nora was working with Thawne.
Iris is understandably pissed to learn Barry took her daughter away without even a goodbye, so she liberates Thawne’s old time sphere and teams up with Ralph to jump to the future to find Nora. But Nora is already trying to figure out her own way back, and uses Thawne’s knowledge of the Negative Speed Force to get back to 2019. Feeling like her family has abandoned her, Nora channels that anger and frustration enough to tap into Thawne’s evil spin on the Speed Force, arriving back in 2019 with those trademark evil, red eyes glowing.
Arguably the most fascinating part of this story is Thawne’s motivations. As Iris notes, it really does feel like he cares about Nora. For whatever reason. He tells her to listen to her mother, and advises Iris to make peace with Barry because their daughter will need them. And seeing how badly and quickly Barry spiraled without her, the advice makes sense.
Sure, Thawne has done some truly awful things over the years, but has death row led Thawne to find his heart? Iris seems to think so, though Barry obviously isn’t having it. It also begs the question, looking to next season … if Sherloque heads home, could this Future Thawne possibly be the new “Wells” on Team Flash next season? Forced together to take on some new, even more evil threat? It’d certainly make for a massive twist to shake up the status quo. Just a thought.
As for the much colder story, Caitlin’s father returns and takes her (along with her mother) captive, with plans to unlock their own icy alter egos to reunite his “snow pack.” He almost succeeds, though his human persona breaks through just in time to save Caitlin, and also to get himself killed protecting her from an attacking Cicada (yeah, Cicada 2.0 is still out there). Caitlin also gets a chance to bond with her mom in the midst of their kidnapping, and actually seemed to find a bit more common ground.
Assorted musings
So, Cicada stole the cryo-atomizer for … umm, some reason? She’s also kidnapped her younger self from the present, as part of her plan. Curious to see how the atomizer fits into all that.
Sherloque finally started to find his place in this dysfunctional family, which means he’s likely on his way out the door (isn’t that always how it goes?).
Next week: Nora looks to assemble her own version of the Rogues. Because Cicada’s not causing enough trouble on her own. That said, it’s worth noting this certainly seems to be a female-led world of villainy this season.
