THE FLASH “Time Bomb” Review: Cicada is Dead; Long live the New Cicada

The Flash — “Time Bomb” -Pictured: Sarah Carter as Cicada II/Grace Gibbons — Photo: Sergei Bachlakov/The CW

THE FLASH REVIEW: “TIME BOMB”

BY JUSTIN CARTER

Well, that’s one way to close out the Cicada Saga. Cicada is dead; Long live the new Cicada.

It’s not terribly surprising The Flash conclusively gets rid of Orlin so the now adult Grace can go on her killing spree with none of those pesky things like emotions or leverage. The signs were all there; he’d more or less instantly lost his drive to hate metas once he was cured and even stopped growling all the time. This sadly wasn’t going to end in a Cicada v Cicada brawl, which would’ve been awesome — no, Orlin tries to appeal to the good in his niece’s heart and gets a dagger in the back for his efforts. No one hurts you quite like family.

Cicada II starts as she means to go on by tracking down the meta to begin this whole ordeal: a woman named Vickie who makes things explode and accidentally led to the death of Grace’s parents when she was just a kid. Grace stole the Time Bubble from the Flash Museum of the future to come back in time, rescue Orlin, and kill Vickie. Things are complicated in part because Vickie has managed to go two years without revealing she’s a metahuman to her family, which of course means things go pear shaped and her family’s afraid of her. Cliche as it is, it’s still effective emotionally because it’s so rare to see a metahuman on this show who isn’t trying to save or terrorize the city and just wants to lead a normal life.

The Vickie story nicely intersects with Nora’s, as it’s finally time for her to give up the ghost and admit to Team Flash that she’s been getting guidance from Thawne in the future. Thawne doesn’t have any advice beyond to just fess up, Sherloque’s getting closer to figuring things out, and it’s a race to see who tells Team Flash first. Of course it’s Sherloque, but it doesn’t make the team’s reactions any less powerful when the truth finally comes out, just as it’s not any less painful to see Barry speed Nora over to the Pipeline in what’s really the only way to ground her.

Finally, there’s Cisco and Ralph, who’s fresh back from … whatever he does when he’s not on the show. Basically, Ralph tries to be a good friend and incorporate Cisco’s girlfriend Camilla into the fold of Team Flash slowly, but Cisco doesn’t want that to happen because he’s still probably going to use the cure on himself by the end of the season. Using the most bizarre story in history about his mom’s dating life, Ralph tells him that he can’t live between two worlds and needs to figure that out. This all but says that Cisco’s leaving the show soon, and I would be fine with that if it felt like Camilla actually had a personality or interior life outside of showing up as Cisco’s girlfriend. Whatever one felt about Kendra and Gypsy, they appeared in greater contexts than Cisco wanting to have a life with them, and it’s a shame that Camilla hasn’t been afforded that opportunity. Maybe that’ll change now that she’s a temporary member of Iris’ blog.

That aside, though, “Time Bomb” is a very good episode that keeps things going at an entertaining pace. With Orlin off the board and Grace ready to go on a rampage, it’ll be interesting to see how this all wraps when the show returns in April.

• Not for nothing, but Orlin should’ve seen that dagger from the back coming, given that he’s pulled that exact same move at least 8 times.
• I understand how vital consent is, Team Flash, but maybe you can bend the rules when said victim will grow up wanting to time travel to your present time and kill you.
• What’s with all the Spider-Man references in the Arrowerse this week?
• Not for nothing, but Ralph’s way of bringing Camilla into the team was really sweet and clever. He’s quietly been the MVP of the season, even if he’s gone about it in not always the best ways.
• See you when The Flash brings its final stack of episodes April 16.