The Flash Season 5, Episode 11: Seeing Red

This week on The Flash, we get an episode that's slightly better than last week's dull misfire, which I freely admit is not saying much. Seeing Red is still riddled with miles-wide plotholes, ridiculous contrivances, lazy writing and extreeeeeme stupidity. Gosh, when I list it all out like that, maybe it wasn't slightly better after all!

Barry's speedster powers are the main reason behind this week's stupidity. A good part of the episode centers around gathering Central City's metahumans and then flying them to the Witness Protection Program before Cicada can kill them. Barry could have easily zoomed each of them out of the city in the time it would take Cicada to blink.

Trouble is, if he actually used his powers in an intelligent and logical manner like that, the episode would have been ten minutes long. So Barry and the rest of the cast all have to conveniently forget he even has powers, in order to make the episode work. Such are the problems facing the writers when your main character is basically a god. There are definitely ways to sidestep the power issue, but the writers either aren't talented enough to do so, or simply can't be bothered.

Cicada continues to be a problem for the series as well. He made for an interesting villain at first, nut at this point we've literally learned everything there is to know about him. We're quite familiar with his powers by now, we thoroughly understand his motivation and we've even seen his origin story. With nothing else left to tell, this once interesting foe has become stale and tired. His storyline should have been wrapped up in the 100th episode. I honestly don't know why the writers keep dragging out his arc, especially when they have Thawne waiting in the wings.

Lastly, what's up with The Flash's cast lately? Ralph's been AWOL since Elseworlds, Part 1, but finally resurfaced this week. But now that he's back, Cisco's decided to sit out this week's episode.

If I didn't know better, I'd think The CW had some kind of budgetary limit on the number of actors they can feature in a given episode. I don't think it works like that though. I'm pretty sure that the regular cast members are under contract, and get paid whether they're in an episode or not— so forcing an actor to sit out a week wouldn't save them any money.

Maybe there just wasn't room for Cisco's shenanigans in this week's already crowded script. Or maybe Carlos Valdes and Hartley Sawyer had a falling out, and refuse to work with one another anymore? Who knows. Something's going on though, because I'm definitely not imagining the cast's game of Musical Chairs.

SPOILERS!

The Plot:
Dr. Ambres sneaks into Orwin Dwyer's hideout to bring him supplies. He asks how his niece Grace is doing, now that she's under constant guard and he can no longer visit her. Ambres says there's been no change. She then gives him a list of known metahumans who've recently been released from prison. She tells him it's time he got back to work murdering metas.

Meanwhile, Norvok (Amunet Black's former enforcer) and a hulking, super strong metahuman named Bork, are skulking around in an alley, planning to rob a business. To that end, the super-strong Bork smashes through a concrete wall with his fist. Before they can sneak through the hole though, Cicada appears. 

He attacks Norvok, but before he can deliver the killing blow he's punched by Bork. The two fight and Bork actually gets the upper hand. Cicada rallies though and stabs Bork multiple times with his dark matter dagger, killing him. Norvok runs for his life.

The next day at STAR Labs, Caitlin's working on an equation for Cisco's metahuman cure, but Killer Frost keeps taking control of her body and sabotaging her work. Caitlin vents her frustrations to Ralph, who shows up for the first time in weeks. She says she thinks she can figure out the cure if she can analyze DNA from a meta created in the past eight months, but she can't find one (PLOT POINT!).

In the Cortex, Iris tells the Gang that Cicada had a busy night, killing three metas. Just then they get an alert that he's striking again.

Cut to Cicada attacking a metahuman woman and slicing her with his dagger. Barry, Nora, Killer Frost and Ralph show up to stop him. Naturally Cicada uses his dagger to dampen everyone's powers. Fortunately Killer Frost is immune to the dagger's effect, and pins him to the wall with a blast of ice.

Barry then zooms Cicada to the STAR Labs Secret Super Jail, and Cicada's threat is ended forever. Nah, I'm just kidding. Instead he tells Caitlin to emerge and treat the wounded meta. While everyone's focused on that, naturally Cicada frees himself. He savagely attacks Nora and severely wounds her before flying off!

Barry speeds Nora back to STAR, where Caitlin determines her back is broken. She says ordinarily Nora's speed-healing would kick in to repair the damage, but Cicada's dagger left residual dark matter in her system, which is preventing that from happening. She says she can't predict when Nora might walk again. Nora wakes, realizes she can't feel her legs and freaks out.

Meanwhile, Sherloque and Ralph discover a list of recently paroled metas, and realize Cicada's killing everyone on it in order! Barry realizes the list came from the CCPD. He and Cecile approach Captain Singh with the list, and Barry says he suspects someone in the police department leaked it. This accusation angers Singh, but he says he'll look into it.

Cecile suggests they use the list to their own advantage, and round up all the metas on it before Cicada can kill them. Barry says Cicada would just end up finding them anyway. Cecile says the metas served their time and deserve a break, so she calls in a few favors and arranges to have them placed into the Witness Protection Program.

Barry asks Killer Frost for her help in rounding up the metas, saying they'll be more likely to believe one of their own. She agrees, and Ralph decides to tag along as well (since he has little or nothing to do on the show anymore). They speed to Amunet's old hideout, where they find Norvok. He's suspicious at first, but Frost eventually convinces him they're trying to help.

Cecile approaches Captain Singh and tells him about the meta evacuation, and asks if he can provide police protection. He sighs and says fine. Just then Officer Jones (who we first met in News Flash, where a meta named Spyn controlled his mind) walks by, trying not to act suspicious. Cecile "accidentally" scans him with her ESP, and realizes there's something twitchy about him.

Elsewhere, Barry zooms the metas to Amunet's hideout. Several of them become impatient and want to leave. Barry tries telling them they'll die if they do so, as Cicada will track them all down and kill them. A few don't believe Cicada even exists. Suddenly Norvok speaks up, saying he watched as Cicada single-handedly killed the hulking Bork. This shuts 'em up for a little while.

Killer Frost compliments Norvok for seeming like he almost cares. He then uncharacteristically opens up to her, recounting his bizarre origin story. After he wanders off, Ralph tells Frost that Norvok seems legitimately scared. He says he recognizes fear, and knows that she's afraid of the meta cure. Frost says she doesn't know what he's talking about.

Barry goes after the last meta on the list— Peek-A-Boo. He's encountered her before, so of course she doesn't trust him when he tells her she's in danger. She says if Cicada comes around, she'll just use her powers to teleport away. Just then Barry sees Cicada peering through the window of Peek-A-Boo's store. She tries to teleport, but unfortunately Cicada's dampened her and Barry's powers.

Barry tosses Peek-A-Boo an extrapolator and tells her to open a breach and jump through it. He then attacks Cicada and the two fight. For some reason, Peek-A-Boo can't seem to operate a simple push button, and struggles with the extrapolator. Meanwhile, Cicada mops the floor with Barry and tosses him across the room. He then hurls his dagger at him. Barry grabs the extrapolator from Peek-A-Boo, opens a breach and the two jump in. The breach closes a split second before Cicada's dagger sticks into the wall behind it.

At Amunet's, Cecile tells Barry she can feel fear from the assembled metas. She then scans Barry and realizes he plans to murder Cicada for hurting Nora. She tells him he needs to calm down before his emotions consume him. She then realizes she sensed the same type of thoughts at the CCPD, and says she has to go.

Back at STAR Labs, Nora's speed healing has finally started to kick in, allowing her to wiggle her toes. Sherloque visits her and asks about the Flash Museum, wondering if she could take him to the future to check out the archives there. She awkwardly says she's not sure that's possible.

Iris has been eavesdropping on their conversation (a lot of that going on in this episode) and asks to speak to Sherloque privately. She then tears him a new asshole, telling him she doesn't appreciate him grilling her daughter while she's trying to recover. She asks if he suspects her of something, and if so why? He defers, and she tells him to leave Nora alone.

Iris then enters the infirmary and sees Nora's healing's kicked in, as she's standing and taking a few wobbly steps.

At Amunet's, Ralph tells Killer Frost AGAIN that he realizes she's afraid of a potential meta-cure. He says he's all for it though, and so are many of the metas they've gathered, as a cure could save their lives. Frost says it's different for her. If an ordinary meta took the cure, they'd go back to being a regular person. She says, "If Caitlin ever took the cure, I'd disappear along with her powers." She's got a point.

Elsewhere, Cicada meets with Officer Jones in a back alley. He says he went to see every meta on the list, and none of them were home. He demands to know if Jones tipped them off. Jones says after what Spyn did to him, he wants to see all meta destroyed too. He says Cecile somehow found out about the list, and is putting all the metas into protective custody. Somehow he even knows where.

Cut to an abandoned (I guess?) roofing company, where Barry, Ralph, Killer Frost and all the metas are waiting for transport. I guess he moved them all from Amunet's to here, while we weren't looking? Odd. Anyway, a helicopter approaches, and Frost says their ride's here.

Suddenly Cicada's dagger hurtles toward the chopper, and slices off its landing gear. Just then, everyone loses their powers (except Killer Frost, who's immune to Cicada's dampening ability). Predictably, Cicada then saunters into view. He thanks the Flash for gathering all the metas into one convenient place for him, which we all knew would happen.

Barry tells Ralph to take the metas out the back door, and "get them to the choppa" somehow. Killer Frost then moves toward Cicada, but Barry stops her, saying, "He's mine." Without his powers, he's reduced to simply using his fists against Cicada, which doesn't work out so well. Luckily for Barry, Cicada decides to punch Barry with the hilt of his dagger instead of slashing him with it.

Ralph takes the metas around back, where they see the landing gear-less copter is still hovering overhead for some reason. Peek-A-Boo teleports herself into it, rather than helping anyone else. Ralph gets an idea and stretches himself into the copter. He then reaches down and grabs the metas one at a time, lifting them into the copter as well. Norvok finally redeems himself by letting the other metas go first.

Cut to Barry and Cicada still fighting. Cicada knocks him across the room, then goes after him with his dagger. Suddenly Killer Frost appears, and forms a lethal looking icicle dagger of her own. She kicks his ass, and even manages to slice him and draw blood with her dagger.

Cicada slams his dagger into the floor, creating a shockwave that knocks her over. He then hurls the dagger at her while she's stunned. Suddenly Caitlin's voice tells Killer Frost to duck, and she does so in the nick of time.

She then uses her ice powers to keep the flying dagger frozen in place and away from Cicada. Without the dagger, Cicada can't dampen powers, so Barry gets his speed back. He movies so fast he freezes time, and repeatedly punches Cicada, beating the living crap out of him.

Back at STAR Labs, what's left of Team Flash realizes that Barry's building up a lighting punch, one whose energy will kill Cicada.

Barry finally knocks Cicada unconscious. He then zooms him into the STAR Labs Secret Super Jail, where his powers will be dampened and he'll never be a threat to anyone again. HAW!! No, I'm kidding again. Instead Barry growls "You'll never hurt my daughter again!" as he prepares to deliver the killing blow with his lightning punch.

Just then a fully-healed Nora appears and tells him to stop. Like the motherf*cking dumbass he is, Barry leaves Cicada lying on the floor and walks over to Nora. Of course Cicada immediately gets up, recalls his dagger and flies off. Brilliant move, Flash!

Nora apologizes for distracting him and letting Cicada get away. Barry says, "No. You brought me back." Excuse me while I nip off to the bathroom and vomit into my toilet.

Back at STAR, Barry says the metas were all delivered to the Feds, and have been given new identities. Killer Frost wonders how Cicada knew where their extraction point was. Sherloque says obviously Cicada had an informant at the CCPD. Iris wonders what kind of cop would do something like that.

Cut to CCPD, where Captain Singh calls Officer Jones into his office. Cecile's there as well, and she confronts him with evidence that he accessed and printed out the meta list. He tries to run, but is stopped by two officers. Singh tells them to get Jones out of his sight. He tells Cecile he's amazed at her insight, and says it's almost like she read Jones' mind. Flustered, she awkwardly deflects the notion.

At STAR, Caitlin tells Killer Frost that she'd never take the cure and kill her. Frost reveals she got a blood sample from Cicada when she slashed him with her ice dagger, and Caitlin can use it to work on the cure.

Sherloque continues investigating Nora, specifically the "time language" she invented. He analyzes her journal entries, and the computer reveals it contains two different types of handwriting. He realizes there's a mastermind hiding behind the scenes, and wonders who it could be.

That night, Barry, Iris and Nora enjoy a celebratory dinner. Barry gazes lovingly at Nora, and then it hits him. Cicada, aka Orlin Dwyer, is also a father. He says the key to defeating him is through his heart, and says they need to wake up his niece Grace.

Thoughts: 

• At the beginning of the episode, Dr. Ambres secretly brings Orlin Dwyer some supplies and medicine. I'm assuming this isn't his house, since Team Flash would just drop by and capture him. Most likely it's an empty, secluded home that Ambres knows about.

• Dr. Ambres enters the house and puts a bag of groceries down in front of a mirror. When she looks up, Orlin's doing the standard horror movie cliche and appears in the mirror behind her, scaring her to death. 

• By the way, I have a theory about Dr. Ambres (that I think I may have mentioned before). She makes no secret about the fact that she hates metahumans just as much, if not more, than Orlin does.

What if she's secretly using her medical know-how to keep Grace unconscious? That would keep fanning the flames of Orlin's hatred, and prolong his meta-killing spree. 

I am 97% sure this is what's happening.

• One last thing about Dr. Ambres. When she stops to check on Orlin she says she brought groceries and some Meloxicam for his injuries. Meloxicam is a real thing— it's a non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drug, used to treat pain.

• In addition to groceries, Ambres also brings Orlin a list of recently paroled metahumans, that she got from a like-minded contact inside the CCPD.

For the record, the names on the list are: Kira May, Dwayne Geist, Carl Bork (who we'll meet in a second), Keisha Moore (who we'll also meet), Zach Mueller, Shawna Baez (aka Peek-A-Boo), Heath Saunders, Reid Rice, Al Cisneros, Danielle Calvert, Ian Scheirer, Greg Anderson, Matthew Norvock (aka Norvok), something Hoyer and a final name I can't quite read.

Note that according to the closed captioning and official Arrowverse sites, Norvok's name is spelled N-O-R-V-O-K. For some reason the list spells it N-O-R-V-O-C-K. Either Norvok dropped the C because he thought it made his name look cooler, or someone in the prop department screwed up.

I was expecting this list to be filled with in-jokes and names of production staff and/or comic creators, but none are recognizable.

• When we first see Caitlin in this episode, she's wearing the mental dampener that Harry invented last season. Cisco gave her in The Icicle Cometh, so she could use it to talk with Killer Frost. 

But all through the rest of the episode they freely chat without the gadget. Heck they argue with one another too, and at one point Caitlin saves Killer Frost by warning her of an attack by Cicada. So why the hell is she wearing the dampener in this scene?

• Sigh... time to talk about the second most stupid scene in this episode (we'll get to the stupidest in a bit).

Barry, Caitlin and Ralph confront Cicada, who's attacking a defenseless meta. Ralph repeatedly fires a blaster at Cicada, catching him off guard and knocking him backward. So far, so good.

Killer Frost then steps in and delivers a deadly ice blast at Cicada.

Her frigid ice rays pin both his hands to a brick wall, neatly trapping him. He howls and moans, realizing he's finally been caught. Make no mistake about it— at long last, Team Flash has captured Cicada here, ending his reign of terror once and for all. 

Well, that's what should have happened. Instead Barry sees the injured meta lying on the street, looks at Killer Frost and says, "We need Caitlin."

Killer Frost then stops blasting Cicada, and reverts back to Caitlin. She runs over to the wounded meta, looks at her for literally two tenths of a second and says, "We need to get her to a hospital." Wow, thanks for that in-depth diagnosis, Doctor Snow! No layman would ever have thought to suggest that course of action!

And of course without Killer Frost to keep him pinned down, Cicada breaks loose from his icy bonds. He then attacks Nora and breaks her back before fleeing once again.

Jesus wept.

This kind of incredibly stupid sh*t right here is why trying to stretch a storyline out over twenty three episodes just doesn't work. Team Flash should have captured and defeated Cicada a long time ago, but the writers need the arc to last the whole season, so they have to stretch it out for as long as they can. 

Apparently the only way they can think to do this is by having the characters make the stupidest decisions possible, in order to let Cicada escape to menace them in a future episode. It's frustrating for the viewers, and unfair to the characters as it makes them look like morons.

I wish The Flash would adopt the format they've been using over on Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D. They break their seasons into three separate "story pods" consisting of eight episodes each. By filling their season with three shorter storylines, they don't have to resort to padding or filler, and their arcs are much more fast paced and exciting.

• When Cicada escapes from Killer Frost's ice bonds, he slams his dagger on the ground, creating a massive shockwave. This energy blast is so powerful that it causes Ralph and Barry to momentarily transform into their stunt doubles!

• Barry wants to round up all the metas on the list and put them in protective custody to save them from Cicada. He thinks the metas will be more inclined to believe him if Norvok backs him up.

Barry, Killer Frost and Ralph then zoom to Amunet Black's old hideout in order to find and recruit Norvok. I dunno... Doesn't this building look a bit too... prominent to be anyone's hideout? It looks like it's in a pretty busy section of town! I'd have thought Amunet would set up shop in one of Central City's hundreds of abandoned warehouses.

Since all the Arrowverse shows are filmed in Vancouver, I naturally assumed that's where this building was located in the real world.

I did a minute or two of googling and found out the building's actually in the Chelsea District of New York City! Weird! And even weirder, I found a stock photo of it from virtually the same angle used in the show!

• Iris tries to cheer Nora after her injury, saying her nerves are starting to regrow. Nora's upset that they're not regenerating fast enough though. They then have the following conversation:

Nora: "Normal axon growth rate reaches five millimeters a day in a large nerve. With speed healing, mine should be over 100."

Iris: "How do you know that?"

Nora: "I took neuro-regeneration in my fifth grade STEM class."

Iris: (impressed) "I took fractions in fifth grade."

OK, its a cute little scene, as the implication is that in the future, children are routinely taught scientific concepts reserved for our world's greatest minds. Unfortunately this makes absolutely no sense.

The producers have never actually nailed down Nora's date of birth, but it has to be sometime between now and 2024, the year in which Barry's destined to disappear.

So let's assume she'll be born in 2024. That means she'd enter fifth grade in 2035. That's just sixteen short years from now. What are the odds that at some point in the next sixteen years, our society will shift toward a science-based school curriculum and will routinely teach neuro-regeneration to grade-schoolers?

The joke would make sense if Nora was from the 25th Century or some equally distant period. But sixteen years from now? Nope!

• When Iris confronts Sherloque about why he's grilling Nora, she reveals she knows his pocket watch is secretly a voice recorder. She tells him to lay off Nora and says, "Careful with your little monocle. Learn to take notes like everyone else."

Wait, what? Um... a pocket watch and a monocle are two VERY different things, Iris!

• So Barry & Cecile want to protect the ex-con metas on the list. Fine. To that end, they have Barry use his superspeed to round them all up and place them in a central location, where the Feds will pick them up.

It's also a location in which they'll be fish in a barrel if Cicada finds them. Which of course he inevitably does.

If Barry could zoom each of the metas to the rendezvous point, then why couldn't he have just taken them to the secret Witness Protection Center? Then they'd never have been in any danger.

• So the Feds are gonna put Norvok in the Witness Protection Program and give him a new identity. I bet he'll fit in really well in the suburbs! No one would ever suspect the guy with the glass eye and "flowhawk" is a metahuman. Nope! Not the least bit suspicious at all! Looks completely normal!

It's been a while since Norvok last appeared, so maybe a refresher course is in order. Originally he was Amunet Black's enforcer/right hand man, and helped her capture new metas. He had the power to extend a gross three-fingered tentacle from his right eye socket. He usually wore a glass eye in the socket, to hide the tentacle when not in use. In the Season 4 episode Harry And The Harrisons, Amunet and Norvok had a falling out, and she sliced off his eye tentacle. Based on the events of this episode, it doesn't look like it ever grew back.

By the way, Norvok's glass eye must be quite advanced. All through the episode it moves in unison with his real one. Normally glass eyes tend to stay locked in place.

• Barry goes to Peek-A-Boo's place of work and tries to convince her to come with him. Cicada then shows up and dampens her teleporation power, as well as Barry's speed. He then gives her an extrapolator and tells her to open a breach and jump through it to safety. 

For some reason, Peek-A-Boo is incapable of activating a device that's operated by ONE large, obvious button. She struggles with the thing the whole time the Flash fights Cicada, and finally he has to push it in order to save them both.

Even more stupidity: Once the metas were all gathered together, why not just open a breach to the Witness Protection Center, instead of waiting for a chopper to fly them there? Hey, writers, it's not cool to forget your show's technology just because it's inconvenient to your flimsy plot!

• As the FBI helicopter approaches the rendezvous point, Cicada hurls his dagger at it, which slices off the chopper's landing gear.

For some reason, the chopper doesn't immediately abort the mission and limp back to its base, as it's now completely useless on a rescue mission. Instead it just hovers over the warehouse for another ten or fifteen minutes.

• So how many people can a copter hold? There're eleven metas plus Ralph, and then two pilots. That's thirteen people. Can that many people really squeeze into a helicopter? And can it fly with a load like that?

I did a bit of googling and found out a rescue chopper can hold sixteen to eighteen people, plus the pilots. So never mind, I guess.

• Once Cicada's disabled the helicopter, he then uses his dagger to drain the powers from the assembled metas— including Norvok! But as I said earlier, last year Amunet amputated his eye tentacle, which as far as I know was his one and only power. So what exactly is Cicada draining from him here?

• Cecile figures out that Officer Jones was the one who leaked the metahuman list to Cicada. Well, actually Jones gave it to Dr. Ambres, who then passed it on to Cicada, but Team Flash isn't aware of her yet. Anyway, we first met Jones back in News Flash, where Spyn took control of his mind and caused him to try and blow up a CCPD softball game.

• As I'm fond of pointing out almost every week, the various Arrowverse shows are all filmed in Vancouver. Apparently they must get a lot of precipitation there. Nine times out of ten anytime The Flash films on location, you can clearly see it's raining.

Turns out I wasn't just imagining it! I looked it up and Vancouver is Canada's THIRD most raining city, averaging over 161 rainy days per year, for an annual total of over forty five inches of precip!

• When Peek-A-Boo teleports herself into the copter, Ralph's annoyed that she didn't try to help anyone else. But could she have? Has there ever seen any evidence on the series that she can teleport someone along with herself?

• Ralph actually uses his powers this week, for the first time in what seems like forever. OK, I get that the chopper's landing gear was sheared off, but couldn't they have hovered a bit closer to the ground? Hell, seems like a good pilot could have got within four or five feet of the ground and held it there while the metas hopped in.

• Why does Ralph tell everyone to tuck their arms in before he reaches down and lifts them into the chopper? Seems like he could get a better grip on them if they held their arms out.

• Sigh... and now let's talk about the most ridiculously stupid scene in the episode, and perhaps the entire series so far (which is really saying something!).

Cicada appears at the rendezvous point, intending to kill the assembled metas. Barry tells Ralph to see that they all get on the chopper. He then tries fighting Cicada, sans powers. Cicada easily beats him and kicks him into a pile of empty boxes.

Killer Frost then appears, forms a dagger of her own from ice, and begins battling Cicada. She does a pretty good job, even managing to slash him and draw blood. He then does his "Slam The Dagger On The Ground And Create A Shockwave" trick, that he already did earlier in the episode. This knocks Killer Frost on her ass and disorients her.

Cicada then hurls his dagger at her, but Caitlin's voice warns Killer Frost to duck, and it flies harmlessly overhead. He recalls the dagger, but Frost fires an ice blast at it, stopping and holding it in mid-air.

With the dagger separated from Cicada, Barry's powers return. He then uses Flashtime to freeze Cicada in place, and proceeds to give him an epic beatdown. At last, Team Flash has finally defeated Cicada. That's not enough for Barry though, as he prepares to deliver a killing blow to Cicada and end his treat once and for all.

Here's the stupid part. Nora then appears and tells Barry to stop. He's so shocked to see her up and around again, that he stops beating Cicada and runs to Nora. He literally turns his back on one of his deadliest enemies, which of course allows him to get away.

Once again, Jesus wept. 

Like I said above, if they'd do two or three shorter arcs per season, this this could have been a satisfying conclusion to the Cicada storyline. But since they seemed determined to drag his plot out for the duration of the season, the only thing they can do the "Team Flash Almost Captures Cicada But He Gets Away At The Last Minute" thing over and over and over.

One last thing about this idiotic scene... If Nora had time to zoom from STAR Labs to the hangar, then Barry had time to speed Cicada into the Super Jail. I get that he was in Kill Mode here and intended on ending Cicada, but still...

• During Barry's beatdown of Cicada, he begins building up Speed Force lightning, intending on delivering a supercharged punch to the villain. Nora notices what he's doing and says, "He's channeling over 2.86 billion joules of energy. That's a combined equivalent of of almost three lightning bolts."

Sorry, Nora, but you're way off. There's over 5 BILLION joules in just ONE average lighting bolt!

• In the wrap-up, we see Sherloque's ignored Iris' threats and is continuing his investigation of Nora. The computer detects two distinct styles of handwriting in her journal, which should have been evident to a master detective like him without an electronic analysis.

For some reason, he immediately assumes this second person is actually directing Nora. No idea why he's automatically deduce that, but whatever. 

He then says, "There is a mastermind behind the scenes. The only question is... who?" Note that as he says this, we see his poorly composited face reflected in the monitor. GET IT? DO YOU GET IT? SHERLOQUE LOOKS LIKE THAWNE, SO THIS SCENE IS TELLING US THAWNE'S THE MASTERMIND! DO YOU GET IT?

I'm honestly not sure why this scene is filmed like it's a major revelation in the series. We've KNOWN Thawne's the mastermind for a good two or three episodes now!

• Right after Barry gets the brilliant idea to defeat Cicada by waking up his niece, we see Orlin plotting to kill Nora. A couple things here:

First of all, Cicada now knows XS is the Flash's daughter because Nora yelled, "DAD, NO!" when Barry was about to kill him.

Secondly, Cicada is apparently into scrapbooking! That's a surprise development!

• This Week's Best Lines:
Ralph: "Uh, Caitlin, is everything oh. Alter-ego confab. Seen enough episodes of Sister, Sister to recognize a sibling spat when I see one."
Caitlin: "Oh. So, I'm trying to help Cisco with his meta-human cure, but every time I start working on it, Killer Frost takes over and messes with my equations. Like this. She changed all my heterozygotes into asterisks."
Ralph: "Oh, I thought those were just tiny snowflakes. So she's not on board?"

Caitlin: "No, and I don't exactly know why."

Ralph: "Can't you just ask her?"

Caitlin: "Oh, I've tried. But every time we start talking about it, she starts singing Barney's I Love You song."
Ralph: "Ooh, that's cold."

Sherloque: (trying to find a common link between the murdered metas) "Look for a connection. Take a look here for example. This man, Geist, has a spider tattoo on his neck, generally indicating he was caught in some form of web. What kind of web? A prison web, perhaps. And Kira May."

Ralph: "She was wearing clothes."
Sherloque: "Of course she was wearing clothes, Giraffe."
Ralph: "No, she was wearing clothes that are two sizes too large."
Sherloque: "Two sizes too large."
Ralph: "Recent rapid weight loss. It's a common side effect of solitary confinement."
Sherloque: "Right."
Ralph: "And Carl Borg..." 

Sherloque: "And Carl Borg, this report says he had a droopy eyelid which is nerve paralysis, common side effect of consuming too much borat."
Ralph: "Or as it's known on this earth, bruno. More commonly known as prison wine."
Sherloque: "Prison wine. All three of these meta-humans were former criminals."