The Flash: Cause and XS review S5 E14

March 5, 2019March 5, 2019 Jeffrey Lyles 0 Comments Candice Patton, Carlos Valdes, Chris Klein, Danielle Panabaker, Hartley Sawyer, Jessica Parker Kennedy, The Flash

Cause and XS was the best episode this season featuring the newest speedster on the block. Ironically, its running in place premise felt very much like it’s been watching XS do so little this year.

Cisco thinks he’s found a dark matter cure, but the only catch is it’ll take a month to solidify. Enter the world’s fastest man. On Sherloque’s suggestion, Barry goes into the Speed Force to accelerate the process in 60 minutes. It was a little weird that XS was so worried about Barry leaving her as she’d been begging for chances to show off all season.

Sleazy Ralph from Season 4 returned to give Cisco his Art of Love book…or loose handouts for his big date with Kamilla. While I tended to loathe Sleazy Ralph, his book gimmick was pretty funny and is here as well. After checking out Kamilla’s dating history (stalker!) Cisco decides to come off like a pretentious entrepreneur. This seems kinda late in the run for Cisco to all of a sudden question his approach to women. It’s not like he’s being single four five seasons.

Essentially this was a Happy Death Day/Groundhog Day spin by way of The Flash. Cicada tracked down Iris and killed Caitlin as she and XS tried to stop him. XS ran fast enough that she reversed time. It’s kinda funny how Cicada did the obvious next step in finding the same woman who broke into his house. You’d think Team Flash would have seen that coming?

In Take 2, XS keeps Iris from getting kidnapped, but Cicada grabs Ralph while Cisco tries to be a jock for his date. This time, Cicada also kills Ralph. Back to the drawing board XS. Sherloque pays attention this time while Cisco vibes Ralph’s pages and starts seeing his previous dates. Sherloque investigates and he manages to get caught. For this latest date, Cisco is an aspiring social influencer. In this encounter, it’s Vibe who gets killed by Cicada’s boomerang dagger trick. After another trip, XS keeps everyone in one room, but Cicada is determined and captures Cecile and kills her. This guy is persistent.

When XS returns for another try, Team Flash asks her if she’s reversing time. By this point, Nora had gone back 52 times. Yikes! After a really nice heart to heart, both Cisco and Nora realize what they need to do to fix their respective issues. For Cisco, that just means being himself — the same guy that Golden Glider, Hawkgirl and Gypsy liked.

Team Flash (minus Barry) concoct a pretty solid, if not needlessly complicated, plan to lure Cicada into his blade’s path. Iris gloats once again that they got him. Or did they? I liked the premise of this episode, but what’s to stop Cicada from trying this tactic all over again say next week?

Back from his mission and caught up on everything he missed, Barry explains resetting the time line and the cracks that come through. Not everything comes back neatly together. For Nora, that might mean the fact that Sherloque has now cracked her future language code.

If there was a weak spot this episode, it was the ‘post-credit’ scene where Nora journeys to 2049 for yet another posturing talk with Thawne. Why does she need his help when Team Flash is so consistently whipping Cicada’s butt every episode?

Cause and XS was a lot of fun and was maybe the season’s best episode even with The Flash only around in a cameo role.