The Flash S05, E20-E21: Gone Rogue & The Girl with the Red Lightning (review)

I watched Gone Rogue and I have to admit I was a little put-off. Why?
Because I felt like Nora should have committed to her rogue persona. I wasn’t sold on Nora’s quick turn around at the end of the episode.

We begin the episode with Nora teaming up with a few low key baddies to steal technology. We find out that she wanted to get a specific tool to render Cicada II’s dagger unusable.

At the same time, she’s still upset with Barry because he didn’t come with Iris to get her back from the future. By the end of the episode, Nora’s villain friends backstab her and team flash saves her. And they lived happily ever after.

I was uninspired, so given the title of this weeks episode, The Girl with the Red Lightning, I thought I should wait and see where this goes.

The most confusing idea about this season is how fast Iris and Barry started to act like they were parents to Nora. Nora is their age or a few years younger. Iris and Barry have seemly matured over the last 20 episodes, but I don’ t know if that is realistic. During every situation, they try to baby her. So it was surprisingly refreshing to hear her stand up to her parents and tell them she was an adult.

Nora took a stand because she is mentally linked to Gracie. While tapping into the negative energy that Gracie feels, Nora can see through her eyes. Doing this allows Nora to pinpoint Cicada II’s exact location when she is about to set off her meta-human killer bomb.

By the end of The Girl with the Red Lightning, I was reinvested in the season. Not because of the family storyline, but because Cicada II finally weaponized the meta-human cure and we were about to enter the last stand.

But, the real hero of this episode was Ralph. He guessed that Cicada II / Gracie wasn’t acting on her own earlier in the episode. Of course, Barry was too tied up thinking about the immediate threat to pay attention. But in the closing moments of the episode when Gracie was defeated and Barry was about to use the tool that Nora stole last week to warp Cicada’s dagger away, Ralph had an epiphany.

Eobard Thawne has something to do with Gracie coming back from the future. It’s a part of his master plan to stop his execution! He used Gracie as a pawn and Nora as a distraction.

In next weeks season finale, we’re going to find out just what that plan is. I’m curious to find out if Ralph was successful in stopping Barry from warping the dagger, or if Thawne will be successful. I have a feeling that the Reverse Flash will once again become the main villain in The Flash series.

I am excited now.