Hi folks! It’s been a whole month without our favorite series, The Flash; in this episode, named “Godspeed” and directed by Danielle Panabaker, we got to learn the whole saga of Nora before coming back in time… oh yeah! Almost forgot, the titular villain made an appearance too. Let’s dive right in.
1. Tension
This episode began right where we were a whole month ago, Barry put Nora on a cell and the team end up broken and struggling. Sherloque reveals that he has been investigating Nora since he first met the team, and Iris gets angry at him for doing so.
Ralph tries to clear the tension and comes up with an idea: they can read Nora’s diary to understand why she accepts help from Thawne. This episode explores then the three main characteristics of Barry’s daughter this whole season: her abandonment issues, becoming a superhero and being mentored by Reverse Flash.
2. Abandonment
Most of this episode takes place in the future, it’s could be very easily a backdoor pilot for an XS series in the future. We see Nora working as a forensic scientist —and getting late to the crime scene, just like her dad— and we meet her best friend, Lia.
She is obsessed with speedsters, and feels a special attraction to the Flash, whom, unbeknownst to her, is her father. While checking a crime scene, she believes a speedster might be the criminal responsible for the robbery, and she is right! It’s no less than a fan-favorite, Goodspeed.
While investigating, he attacks her, which fries the power-dampener that she has implanted and it triggers her powers, only to discover what we already know: Iris (and everyone) are trying to make her oblivious to her destiny. And Nora feels betrayed.
3. Godspeed comes in
And he was wasted!
I mean, it was fun to see a speedster so new in the Flash mythology, his suit was really awesome, but he played a role that literally any D-list villain could fill: the first villain to a new hero.
In this version, August Heart was not stuck in a Speed Force storm, instead, he uses Zoom’s Velocity-9 to get powers, and he is stealing the chemicals needed to make a permanent formula.
4. Becoming XS
The second main trait of Nora is her journey to become a superhero, she visits Eobard and he guides her to Gideon’s room, where she discovers that her father is the Flash, Barry left her a message, apparently while fighting on the Crisis in Infinite Earths.
After Godspeed kills her best friend, and she confronts her mother, Nora is angry, and all she wants is to find the killer, and serve justice, but the only way she can do it is with the help from another speedster.
5. Mentoring
After being reluctant to help Nora, Thawne finally decides to help her, while being persecuted by Godspeed, he uses the exact same words that he used to help Barry back in season one, but she is not Barry and that speech didn’t help.
At the end they come up with a way to neutralize V-9’s effects on Godspeed and they caught him. Finishing Godspeed’s story on the series, I believe.
I do hope that we see more of him next season, but the way the character was treated this episode, it seems very clearly that this was a one-off, like Trajectory back in season two.
BONUS: The final confrontation Barry has a one-on-one with her daughter, and he asks her how many times she went back to Thawne, even after the reveal that he killed Barry’s mom. He unilaterally makes a decision about trusting Nora, and drops her back in the future, she is no longer in the team. Then, he confronts Thawne, he only has 10 minutes left in his timer and it seems that he will die then.
And that’s it for this episode, overall, it was a great story, even if I felt like Godspeed was wasted, it was charged with emotions that set up the ground for the final episodes of this season, with a lot of plot lines still open: Icicle on the run, Cisco’s cure, Cicada’s defeat and this whole affair with Thawne, WHAT A SEASON!
What did you think of this episode? Leave your comments below and join us next week for our take on episode 519, “Snow Pack”.
