Hi folks! Welcome back to our weekly recap of your beloved telenovela, The Flash. This week’s episode is named “Blocked” –get it? Because she makes “blocks” of air, I love its cheesiness.
First, let’s talk about the episode overall, this time, although we got a big fight at the end of the episode, and this season’s plot is barely starting, the writers took special attention to the character’s relations, with a lot of fun and even some introspection.
1. Cicada
This episode began with the introduction to this season’s villain, Cicada, we see flashbacks of his fight with Gridlock and the toll it took on his body; he was on a locker room and a workmate says the classic “I’d hate to see the other guy”. This means he is human, although he kind of “absorbs” the power from his adversaries, he does feel pain.
We don’t know yet how close is he going to be to his comic version, but what we know is that he uses flash-shaped daggers and he is fixated on killing The Flash’s rivals –oh! And he makes a super annoying sound. He is strong, and can nullify meta-abilities, that apparently makes him stronger.
2. “I’m not taking you to Fiji, Ralph”
Cisco definitely is the show stealer every season, I just enjoy his jokes and the way he reacts to everything, but then you
add Ralph to the equation, and you some truly hilarious scenes.
This time, Team Flash try to help Cisco feel better after breaking up with Gipsy, but it’s hard because they are still vibe-connected, he is kind of blocked and can’t vibe the death certificate of Caitlin’s dad.
They tried to do a list of things that have helped Ralph before… well the only thing they did was a makeover, but to me the important thing was the jokes, we always get a dumb reaction or a quirky answer between them and I just love their chemistry.
3. On our relationship with our mothers
As I said before, the big theme of this episode was introspection, the relationships between the characters. On the “mom” side, Iris is still having a bad time with the broken relationship with Nora, and she reacts poorly too, as if future-Iris is a bad mother.
Also, Cecile is losing her mental connection with her baby daughter, she doesn’t like that because says that it was a good opportunity to be a perfect mother. Imagine knowing exactly what our children need on the spot, that would be SO easy! So, she tries to regain that lost link artificially, but Joe discourages her from doing so, I mean, that’s the easy solution, but it’s not the right one.
4. On our relationships with our fathers
On the “dad” side, Flash struggles with Nora’s attitude, always trying to do big things to impress him; Caitlin tries to focus on helping Cisco, instead of focusing in the search for his father, because what if he doesn’t want anything to do with her?
And finally, Joe keeps dealing with being an old father to a newborn while teaching his adult children, he talks to Barry about one time that he made a mess in a science fair to show off in front of his adoptive father.
He helped Barry (and Cecile) understand that it’s not easy being a parent, “there’s not shortcuts”, and nobody is perfect, but that’s life, and the most important thing is loving your children… damn, his speech really is inspiring, it is hard being a parent, and it is scary to not know what to do sometimes, whether you are a first timer or a late timer; but that struggle is always worth it. We won’t always have the right answers, but parenting with love will keep you on the right track.
5. What’s next?
This episode ended with two cliffhangers, first, it was Caitlin’s mom who forged the death certificate –speaking of being a good parent, am I right?; and second, the big fight ended when XS came back screaming “Dad!”, Cicada looked at her and fled, back in Star Labs she named him, so, is he also from the future? Does she know him from the Flash museum? We’ll have to wait and see.
And that’s it for this episode, overall, I really enjoyed it, it was both funny and contemplative, I’m hopeful this will be a good season. So, join us next week for our take on episode 503, “The Death of Vibe”… wait what?
