THE FLASH “News Flash” Review

The Flash — “News Flash” -Pictured (L-R): Grant Gustin as Barry Allen and Jessica Parker Kennedy as XS — Photo: Robert Falconer/The CW

THE FLASH “NEWS FLASH” REVIEW

BY JUSTIN CARTER

A conflict between parent and child on television is always tricky to pull off. For those of us older than a teenager, it’s easier to side with the parent as opposed to the kid; after all, kids are incredibly obnoxious growing up, and don’t really have the maturity to understand everything that’s going on. It’s even worse when it comes to superheroes.

This is what makes the dynamic between Iris and Nora on The Flash this season so hard to go through. Whatever Future Iris wound up doing to Nora, short of actually hitting her as a child, it likely isn’t as bad as Nora’s describing it, especially considering her husband just up and vanished not long after their child was born. The tension between the two women finally gets revealed this week, as it turns out sometime in the future, Iris injected a power suppressing chip in Nora, which she later dug out and came to resent her mother for.

Even without the full picture presented, there’s a number of reasons that Iris likely did this; she probably wanted to wait for Barry to return so he could teach her since she was only a speedster for about a day, metahumans are apparently illegal in the future according to Legends of Tomorrow, and so on. But honestly, even if the future wasn’t apparently hell for metahumans, Iris probably had the right idea because Nora’s been a little shit to her from the start. Even as someone who treats sarcasm like a second language, she was just being incredibly rude despite Iris’ kindness. And it’s a shame because Nora is so likable and Jessica Parker Kennedy is so good as her that seeing her treat one of her parents like garbage, while a valid thing for a young adult to do, is heartbreaking to see when her mom really is doing her best.

The Iris/Nora situation comes to a head thanks to a vlogger named Spencer Young who on the  night of the Thinker’s satellite exploding was saved by XS and got a piece of dark matter infused in her phone. All she has to do now is write headlines on a screen and whoever sees it will do her bidding, making her the ultimate media personality as she makes Barry speed to Vegas and Nora turn on her dad during a climactic battle at a soccer stadium. Whatever interest the show has in tackling “fake news” seems near nonexistent as it zeroes in on the West-Allen family troubles, which is probably for the best.

Elsewhere, Cisco’s healing means that Sherloque and Ralph get to spend time hunting for Cicada. Ralph proves himself to be a pretty good detective, quickly zeroing down Cicada works using just the breathing sound of his masks, and if it weren’t for the masks being common in that work environment, would’ve nailed the villain then and there. Sherloque completes the investigation, surmising that Cicada has breathing problems and that dark matter is slowly killing him. Thanks to Nora helping punch the satellite into pieces, dark matter has struck people and random objects, making a new amount of problems for Team Flash. Meta-Tech: probably not the new holiday gift of the season!

Additional Notes

• So it seems Cicada’s powers are still blooming, since he just got super strength before the episode ended?

• Nora is queer, shown here when she’s flirting with Spencer, which Iris picks up on immediately and Barry takes time to understand what’s happening.

• Barry, you’re bad at baseball, why do you play. Truly.

• I loved Iris being bad at cooking, particularly “I’m gonna make you a banana.”

• The Flash is taking next week off, so Ragdoll will have to be creepy on Nov. 13. See you then.