Season 5 of The Flash was excellent! I felt it had the perfect blend of drama and reckless adventures, of everyday life and incredible super heroics, and understated emotions and grand drama. It hasn’t felt as magical and superhero-ish since Season 2, mainly because Season 3 and Season 4 had so much angst that it killed the core concept of the Flash’s happy, genuine character.

Synopsis

The Flash is a superhero drama that revolves around the titular superhero, who is the fastest man alive and has an assortment of other superpowers related to speed (some of them can be a little… tangential). In Season 5, the Flash meets his grown up speedster daughter from the future, Nora West, and battles enemies old and new for the fate of himself and many others. But the greatest enemy may lie within, in the end.

Directors: David McWhirter, Tom Cavanagh, Danielle Panabaker

Writers: Todd Helbing, Lauren Certo, Judalina Neira, Kelly Wheeler

Cast:

• Grant Gustin (The Flash/Barry Allen)

• Candice Patton (Iris West-Allen)

• Danielle Panabaker (Killer Frost/Caitlin Snow)

• Carlos Valdes (Vibe/Cisco Ramon)

• Hartley Sawyer (Elongated Man/Ralph Dibny)

• Danielle Nicolet (Cecile Horton)

• Jessica Parker Kennedy (XS/Nora West-Allen)

• Chris Klein (Cicada/Orlin Dwyer)

• Tom Cavanagh (Reverse-Flash/Eobard Thawne, Sherloque Wells)

• Jesse L. Martin (Joe West)

Strong character arcs

So I mostly love the cast from The Flash (sans anything Harrison Wells [Tom Cavanagh] related), and this season had lovely character arcs for each of them. The most important thing is that these plot threads were interesting, satisfying, and developed the characters in a way that didn’t make them a cookie cutter cast. Everyone got their chance to shine, and the character stories weren’t there for the sake of being there – they were important and integral pieces of the story.

Assortment of villains

The assortment of villains that the Flash had to face down showed the extent and diversity of his rogues’ gallery. I mean, it was foreshadowed earlier (such as King Shark and Gorilla Grodd’s fight), but it was still incredible to see. At this point, the show knows the audience’s tolerance for the ridiculous, and so it just wholeheartedly embraced it and went with the corny bad guys.

Authentic emotions

But even with all the slightly over the top action, Season 5 of The Flash was a genuinely emotional one – thanks to Nora West (Jessica Parker Kennedy), the Flash’s daughter. Now, I’m a bit apprehensive of such charters being dropped in out of the blue, because their mandated importance and plot function can cause them to be a little shallow. But Nora’s existence raised painful questions to the superhero couple and the world at large, that could be heart-wrenching and thought provoking.

Nora West – an endearing grown up kid from the future

And Nora West  was surprisingly interesting! I’m not a fan of the “grown up kids from the future” stories because the kids can be rather irritating, like Chibimoon. But Nora was okay. She wasn’t naive to the point of stupidity, but she still held some innocence that made us want to take care of her. And she was fairly capable, took initiative, and had more character than her costume. I was prepared to dislike her at first, but she grew on me rapidly. Quite a surprise, I must say.

Sherloque is such a pain

Unfortunately, Sherloque Wells marred most of the show. I mean, did we really need a French detective? Is Tom Cavanagh bullying his way into playing whatever he wants? What other reason did Sherloque have for existing, except to fulfil the mad fantasies of the actor playing him? He is the most useless addition to the show, and I hope this stinker gets written off ASAP.

Should you watch The Flash Season 5?

The Flash Season 5 is a return to the glory days when the series first started out. There’s a lot more of what made everything so good in this season, and a whole lot less of the irritating, annoying aspects. I hope that The Flash keeps up with this incredible quality, because there’s still so much more that the show can achieve with creative minds such as these.

Rating 4.2

(4.5 without Sherloque)