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Overanalyzing Anime
Blog Owner & Lead Writer
This weeks episode of “The Flash” gave us our first look at The Flash’s latest antagonist, Cicada, as #TeamFlash squared off against the terrifying new villain.
The Good
This season is kicking things off in a very intriguing way. In the past, the show has made a concerted effort to conceal the identity of its main antagonist in order to build a mystery surrounding who they might be and how they might be connected to Barry and the others. However, this season has abandoned that aspect of the show in lieu of a far more direct approach, with Cicada being unmasked at the start of this episode. Now, one could argue that Cicada may not be the overarching threat - and that’s a fair assessment - but it’s clear that he’s going to be around at least until the mid-season finale and that makes him a crucial part of the overall story of this season, especially given the reaction he had to seeing Nora near the end of the episode.
Cicada really manages to standout from previous Flash villains due to the way his powers seemingly work. While, at the beginning of the episode, it appeared that he was sapping the strength from Gridlock, the end of the episode leads me to believe that he is inherently strong, with the lightning shaped dagger acting as a separate weapon that weakens his opponents. I say that because, even with the strength of three metas at his disposal, he didn’t seem that much stronger than during his battle with Gridlock. It will be interesting to see exactly how #TeamFlash deals with someone who can take away their powers; the obvious answer would be to take the dagger away from him, but Cisco learned the hard way that that’s easier said than done.
Aside from the battle with Cicada, this episode managed to introduce an interesting subplot with Joe and Cecile, as the latter struggled with losing her ability to read their child’s thoughts. While the telepathy concept was used as a plot device last season, its interesting to see them develop it into a meaningful subplot for Cecile, as it’s easy to understand how losing such an intimate connection with her child might push her to do anything to keep it. I also liked the fact that it showed how insecure she was about trying to raise a child again after so many years, and that it gave Joe the opportunity to reassure her that, telepathy or not, they’ll be great parents to their daughter. I honestly just love them two of them as a couple - not only are they one of the best written couples in the Arrowverse, but the actors just have great chemistry with one another.
Some other great things include.
The Bad
Villains of the week are always the worst aspect of “The Flash.” This stems mostly from the fact that they are, more often than not, easily forgotten. How many of the meta-humans that The Thinker absorbed last season do you remember? I know one of them was portrayed by Kendrick Sampson and the other had a strange accent that, for whatever reason, Devoe used even after he inhabited her body. While there are a few standouts, such as King Shark and The Trickster, for the most part, they are forgettable, and this week was no different. While her power was interesting, Block was ultimately only there to give Barry and Nora the opportunity to learn how to work together properly. Honestly what I’ll most likely remember her for being the (unintentional) catalyst for why Cicada collided with #TeamFlash so soon.
Furthermore, I really didn’t care for the subplot surrounding Cisco dealing with his breakup. While I respect them for wanting us to see that this breakup hasn't been an easy thing for him, it just felt like a strange inclusion to the storyline. A lot of it had to do with the fact that Danielle Panabaker, despite her great acting skills, just can’t seem to hit the comedic beats in the same way as Sawyer and Valdes. It is not a knock on her as an actress - because she’s great in her role - but hanging out with the two of them just made her very awkward. In fact, a lot of those scenes were awkward in general because they just didn’t really fit with the tone of the rest of the episode.
The Ugly
But since we’re on the topic of both Caitlin, I can’t tell you how much I do not care about this subplot they have her trudging through currently. The way they’ve chosen to portray “Killer Frost” is akin to Hulk, and it just seems very strange to me. I get they want to have each character doing other thing while not working towards defeating the seasons’ main antagonist, but this just feels strange. She’s had “KF” in her since she was a child? And now her dad faked his own death? And her mom has something to do with it as well? This just seems very strange and equally as unnecessary. Hopefully next week will push this story forward in a positive way because, as of right now, it’s the weakest part of “The Flash’s,” main plot threads.
Consensus
As always, there’s more to love about The Flash than hate. This was a very good second episode, and I hope they keep up the momentum as we head into next weeks episode.
My rating: 8/10
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