Last week Team Flash met face-to-face with the villainous Cicada.  Although he showed slight reservations, he easily disposed of the team.  What will this week bring?  Will we find out why Cicada wants to take down The Flash and all those he has apprehended?  Read on to find out!

Flash Museum — The episode starts off in the future, 2032 to be exact.  We got to see a young Nora going through the Hall of Villains with a good deal of Easter Eggs.  Some of the best were Reverse-Flash’s costume (foreshadowing?) as well as mentioning that Cicada has never been caught, not even by “the League”.  The issue is that Cicada is early due to Nora breaking the timeline.  Nora’s plan is to bring in a new Wells in order to track down Cicada since he had never been used in the future fights against the villain.  Possibly not in her world, but he has in others, so this was a bit confusing.

The New Wells — As they are searching for Wells, it felt like last season’s Council of Wells which I didn’t particularly care for.  So who do we get?  Harrison Sherlock Wells.  Hmm.  We shall see. I love Tom Cavanagh as an actor on this show, but I haven’t liked how we get a “new” Wells each season.  He did such a great job showing his diversity as an actor, but I wish they would stick with a specific Wells rather than one from a new Earth each season.  They then spend numerous episodes developing his character, and while some developments have been interesting (see Seasons 1 and 2) others haven’t been as successful (The Council of Wells).

Anyways, Sherlock Wells is extremely talented in his detective skills, yet requires a fee.  Barry says they can pay it with the Star Labs stock.  Does STAR Labs still even have stock?  Hasn’t it pretty much been dormant since the particle accelerator incident?  I was curious how they even kept the lights on. So, there isn’t really any initial explanation (which has been typical in Flash), but Sherlock Wells knows exactly where Cicada is and the entire layouts of his whereabouts.  Even though it doesn’t turn out the be THE Cicada, this is the issue I have had with Flash.  There are huge plotholes that are filled with a quick fix.  A couple episodes ago they said some small events don’t mess up the timeline, only large events, or when they use scientific jargon to come to a solution.

Wells apparently has caught Cicada 37 times and it has always been the same person, until now. Why is it now a different person?  The timeline.  Near the end, we see that there seems to be something off about this Wells.

Cicada’s Target — Cicada looks to be targeting Cisco.  Or is it Joe?  In his research of Cisco, Joe appears in the background of the pictures.  He clearly wants Cisco and is using Joe as bait. Cisco and Flash arrive to Cecile’s distress call and Cicada takes Cisco.  The two are stuck on Lian Yu…err, a breach that takes them to a wooded area.

A lot happened in the next part:  Flash gets the crap beat out of him since Cicada drained his powers, Nora came up with a plan within minutes, executed the plan, used a newly learned skill, Cisco appeared to have been blown up even though the explosion didn’t touch Flash who was close by, only for Cicada to then fly away (didn’t know he could fly) and Cisco returned because Nora had him breach in a different way.  Whew.  Did you get that?  Yeah, it was a lot.  It could have been done well, but once again seemed rushed.  Nora “thought things through” within seconds, and for a minute (literally) I thought Cisco was dead.  They could have used this for an episode or two, but they immediately brought him back.  Too rushed.

The team realizes they cannot use their powers to defeat Cicada…much like DeVoe…Cicada is very much humanized at the end though when viewers see that his daughter is in a coma, which is why he stopped when Nora yelled “dad” and when he heard Joe and Cecile’s baby.  I do like that they are humanizing a villain, which makes him more relatable, but why does he want to destroy all metas?  Could The Flash, or Cisco, be the cause of his daughter’s current state?

Caitlin and Ralph — Since there isn’t much else for them to do, Caitlin and Ralph investigate the legitimacy of the death of Caitlin’s father.  After breaking into an office (which was exactly like a scene from the original Fantastic Four movie) they begin to find more clues. Ralph is still Jim Carrey-esque and I am not quite interested in this side-story…yet.  It may come to some good. After finding a note that appears to be a suicide note, Caitlin begins to feel a sense of closure until she realizes that the note wasn’t for a suicide, but a clue to come find him.

Frequent LRM commenter Kronx always has great insight when watching The Flash.  Last week he mentioned the similarities between DeVoe being this seemingly unstoppable force draining metas’ powers, and he paralleled that with Cicada which seems to have an extremely similar plot structure.  I am hoping Cicada isn’t the main villain and that half way through the season we get a return of Reverse Flash.  Otherwise, we may be in store for some similarities to last season. What did you think of this week’s episode?  Are you still enjoying the show, or does it feel like more of the same?  Leave your thoughts in the usual spot, and thanks for reading!

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