On The Air: The Flash Season 5 mid-season report (2018)

Some people just don't learn.
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Show: The Flash
Season: 5th
When it airs: Tuesdays at 8 (ET). New episodes resume January 15.
Previous rating (2017-18): B--.
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Where we are: At the end of last season, XS, aka Nora West-Allen (Jessica Parker Kennedy), officially introduced herself to Team Flash after helping Flash himself (Grant Gustin) defeat the Thinker.

Unfortunately, Nora also messed with the timeline, a recurring problem on this show, and, prior to Elseworlds, it was revealed that she was working in league with Eobard Thawne, the Reverse Flash, who is in his season 1 persona, occupying the body of the deceased Dr. Harrison Wells (Tom Cavanaugh). I'd just as soon file Thawne under "characters that need to go away", but he is Flash's greatest nemesis in the books, more so than the Rogues. Matt Letscher played Thawne on Legends of Tomorrow, but must've been unavailable this season. Plus, Cavanaugh maintains a presence playing various variants on Wells, this season being Sherloque Wells, a French sleuth who exists mostly for comedy relief.

Now, the problem with Nora is that since she is so young, she is also impulsive and naive, easily manipulated by the likes of Thawne with false promises.This will not end well.

The season's other villain is Cicada, a more recent creation, but not the one you know from the books. Instead, what the producers decided to do was tease the use of David Hersch, the Cicada from the books, but gave the identity instead to Ollin Dwyer (Chris Klein, "American Pie"), who is trying to care for his ailing daughter. I get the sympathy angle, as a means of humanizing the villain, rather than retain Cicada's original characterization as a cult leader. That's fine, and most viewers were lulled into thinking Cicada's story would end before Elseworlds. It didn't. It's going to drag into the second half, which shouldn't be happening. That says to me the writers are over-reaching, again showing they don't know how to write shorter arcs, unlike over on Supergirl, and assume Cicada has enough of a story to last the full season. No, he doesn't, not this itineration, anyway. The cult leader? Yeah, he would, but we just had a cult leader over on Supergirl last season......!

What is hurting the show is the absence of Jesse L. Martin (Joe West), who is out with an injury, and was limited in what he could do in the first half. That means Team Flash has to carry more of the action than usual, and that's not exactly working as well as it should. For what it's worth, they've revived the online series, The Chronicles of Cisco, on the CW website, so we will get more of Carlos Valdes' comedy stylings as Cisco Ramon, tech genius and lovelorn sidekick. At least with the addition of Jessica Parker Kennedy, Flash has upped the cute quotient.

Right now, there isn't much that would convince me to tune in on Tuesdays. I watch the show On Demand more than usual. Yeah, that says the writers need help.

Here's the season poster:

Rating: B--.