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The Flash: Legacy review S5 E22

Jeffrey Lyles 0 Comments , , , , , , , , ,

Sometimes a good season finale can make up for an uneven 22 episodes. I’m not sure if Legacy fixed all of the problems I had during The Flash’s fifth season, but it ended on a surprising note that nicely covered the start of this journey back last fall.

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Ralph realized something was up with the dagger last episode and managed to block the world’s fastest man from blasting the dagger to oblivion. People really shouldn’t be able to prevent Flash from doing anything where speed is of the essence. Anyway, Cicada II uses the distraction to make her escape while Ralph turns into Knack from the PS4 game. Sherloque comes up with a pretty simple fix for the kinetically inverted issue and has Cisco blast him. Good thing Vibe was around otherwise Ralph would be a pile of bricks right now.

the flash legacy review - nora and barry

Temporarily thwarted, Cicada II has a new plan — she’ll use the time sphere and travel to the night of the particle accelerator accident. Ohhhhkay.

Team Flash pieces together that the dagger is the only thing keeping Reverse Flash in prison and Thawne was using Nora to create his ultimate time hack.

Nora’s upset because Thawne used her. I’m a little upset because it just validated all of Barry’s concerns and makes him right in a case where it was fine for both of them to be equally deserving of blame. Her for not trusting Barry and Iris with the truth and Barry for immediately going into panic no trust mode when it comes to anything involving Thawne. Now it’s a matter of who do they stop: Cicada or Thawne?

While the Alpha team figures that out, the B squad of Team Flash continues their relentless efforts to make Cisco tell Kamilla that he’s Vibe. Bowing to the peer pressure, he tells her. Unlike Curtis who put a little effort into disguising himself as Mr. Terrific, Vibe is literally just Cisco with a leather jacket and goggles. He doesn’t even put his hair in a ponytail! Kamilla is cool with it and explains that she’s read a lot of comic books and understands all the tropes of a hero revealing their secret identity. Sometimes, The Flash writers are too meta for their own good. Next season they’re going to have characters doing cutaways to speak directly to the audience.

the flash legacy review - cicada 2

Nora comes up with a plan to stop both villains, but first they’ve got to tie Cicada II up. Per the norm for the season finale, Cicada II starts making questionable decisions and monologing a lot more than fighting. This time, it’s enough to get her tossed into a STAR Labs energy prison while Nora tries to convince the comatose younger Grace to take the cure.

It’s a battle of minds as Grace sees both the corrupted version and regular nice guy version of Uncle Orlin. Faster than it probably should have been, Nora sells Grace on taking the cure. This could have been done earlier though, no? It doesn’t matter as Cicada II is still too strong for the cure to take effect until Barry uses the device to destroy the dagger. Old Grace gets the Decimation snap effect and fades away just as Thawne regains his powers in the future.

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Granted this was late in the season, but this Reverse Flash appearance was built up enough that it still really worked. RF is able to take care of Barry and Nora without much effort, but it’s Vibe and the rest of Team Flash that turn the tide. Fighting Thawne is triggering the Negative Speed Force within Nora again. But last week we thought it was from the connection with Grace…

The only way to save her is to play Mon-El and the Phantom Zone and have her stay in the Negative Speed Force. Nora isn’t down with that and prefers to vanish away while exchanging tearful goodbyes with her parents. So did Nora basically commit suicide? That’s an interesting choice and I feel like it was a case where the writers backed themselves into a corner with Nora never wanting to leave the present and her folks fine with her sticking around.

the flash legacy review - iris and barry

I really feel like between the characters fading into (energy) dust and Oliver looking like he’s gonna pull a Tony Stark during the Crisis on Infinite Earths crossover, the Arrowverse creators are probably very annoyed with the Avengers films right now.

Snark aside, this was a beautifully performed scene by Candice Patton, Jessica Parker Kennedy and Grant Gustin. Again, no Arrowverse show can touch The Flash for pure heart-string tugging. Reverse Flash bounces teasing that he’ll see Barry in the next Crisis.  I like that this was another instance where Thawne cost Flash someone he loved, which will only strengthen that rivalry.

the flash legacy review - thawne and flash

In the fallout, Team Flash says goodbye to Sherloque. Goofy accent aside, I liked this character even if I wish we’d stop the Wells variants and just bring Harry back to stay.

Cisco wants the cure they’ve been foreshadowing this all season with the introduction of the vibe portals. But if ever there was an episode that made this choice confusing and disappointing it was this one. Vibe was essential in beating both Cicada and Thawne and now he wants to use the cure?? Legacy had a real weird message for impressionable teens.

Singh thanks Joe and Cecile for the help administering the cure and announces he’s going to be the new police chief. And he wants Joe to replace him as Captain. He’s not worried Joe can’t handle it since The Flash has his back. Barry tries to protest, but Singh just reminds them he was a detective too. That makes sense. Hey, who doesn’t know Barry’s identity now?

Barry finds Iris in the time vault looking over Nora’s memory book, which really should have vanished when she was dusted, but OK. Nora recorded a message for them. It’s sweet and actually made me miss Nora. This was a great epilogue for a character I wish the writers handled a lot differently.

Later in the Time Vault, an anomaly has created a time flux, which changes the date of the 2024 Crisis to 2019. Here’s what that new article says:

Legacy was a solid ending to a season that had more high points than lows despite some rough patches with the tired training a sidekick premise. It’ll be interesting to see how much build-up we get for Crisis over the course of the season before the big crossover.

What’d you think of the season finale?

Rating: 8.5 out of 10

Photo Credit: The CW

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