Barry Allen is the fastest man alive, or so he keeps telling us every week. Personally, I think that The Flash is maybe the CW’s most inconsistent show, mostly because they have a formula and they stick to it. There’s a mystery villain with a secret identity, there’s a new character who joins the team and they turn out to be the villain or working for them. It’s a good show, but it has only hit top quality in the first and fourth seasons, for me personally.

This season’s new character is Nora West-Allen, Barry and Iris’ daughter from the future come back in time to help her dad and get to know him better. In the pilot for The Flash they introduced the idea that at some point Barry was going to disappear in a Crisis, but for Nora, that’s the way in the past and she’s never known her dad. Nora is a speedster too, but how did she learn to travel back in time to meet her dad? That’s what we learn this week. Spoilers ahead people!

In the mid-season finale, we saw Nora run back to 2049 to visit somebody in a future prison, and that person was Eobard Thawne (Tom Cavanagh, not Matt Lescher, as he has been since Crisis on Earth X). Nora and Thawne argue for a while because she’s just found out that Thawne killed her grandmother to get revenge on Barry. Thawne says that he doesn’t want the Reverse Flash to be his legacy and asks for Nora’s help, but she says no and runs back to 2019.

We’re in the Cortex, AKA the most used set in CW history, and our cast is summarising the plot. They also explain why Joe and the baby aren’t around, that he’s taken her to go see Wally. For those not in the know, this is because Jesse L Martin, the actor who plays Joe West suffered a severe back injury during the summer break. You may have noticed that Joe has been seated in every appearance in season 5, and that’s why.

There’s a bit of a theme of people being out this week, but I’ll get to that later. The main plots this week are that Cecile is back to work for the DA and is prosecuting Jocelyn Jackham, the Weather Witch, and that Caitlyn is going to remove the Cicada dagger shards from Cisco’s hands so he can use his powers again.

There’s also a new meta this week, or more accurately a new person with meta tech. She’s called the Silver Ghost and has a super-powered keyfob that allows her full control of any vehicle. She uses this to steal a Lamborghini and Flash tries to phase through the car to pull her out, but her meta keyfob has covered the car in a dark matter field and he bounces off but the cannot stop vibrating. Nora runs him back to S.T.A.R. labs, where there’s a very fun scene where they try to find the right patch of the floor to phase him into a Pipeline power dampening cell. Barry is then only on the rest of the show via TV screen, apart from maybe a minute or two of people talking to him in the Pipeline.

I’m assuming that they were filming this episode around Grant Gustin’s recent wedding, which would explain his absence.

Nora has to give evidence in Barry’s place at the courthouse and is still flared up from visiting Eobard and finding out about her namesake’s murder so she goes all out, putting all the blame squarely on Weather Witch even though Cecile can see she feels remorse with her telepathy. Of course, neither of them discuss this, and Cecile is surprised when Nora goes for the jugular.

Back in the Cortex, Cisco comes to Caitlyn to explain that he can cure metahumans and make them human again. Caitlyn is mad at him for even suggesting curing metas because curing her gets rid of Killer Frost and they’re super close now.

There’s a quick aside here where Sherloque Wells asks Barry about the future writing he did when he came out of the Speed Force. This is part of the ongoing C plot where Sherloque is suspicious of Nora, which I expect will be the A plot in a few weeks time.

Silver Ghost attacks the prison transport and abducts Weather Witch. She is starting a crew called The Young Rogues and wants Weather Witch to help her steal tech from Argus, but the Witch disagrees and leaves. She sabotages a weather beacon to show lightning and draw Nora out to see if she will help her take down SIlver Ghost, but Nora doesn’t believe that villains feel remorse or can change and takes her straight back to the cops. The Weather WItch is really upset, which is (I assume) why she didn’t see that Nora is very clearly XS because the mask does literally nothing to hide her identity.

Iris meets up with Nora afterward and says she thinks she made a mistake, and that not all people are truly evil and they deserve a second chance. Nora asks Barry if he thinks that villains deserve a second chance and he talks about Leonard Snart. She asks him about Thawne and whether he could change and Barry says “maybe someday in the future…”

Cisco is working with the dagger fragments to make his meta cure when Killer Frost walks in and destroys his experiment. He explains the cure is really for him, and that he’s not a hero, he’s just a nerd with powers. He wants to settle down and have a family and kids and doesn’t want them to worry he’s not coming home.

Meanwhile, the Silver Ghost gets Weather Witch out of jail and they go break into Argus where they steal a super high tech stealth car that cost $24m and is full of “Waynetech”. But it does just look like a classic Mustang with gamer PC style RGB lighting. The interface is controlled by a big touchscreen with emoji on it, which doesn’t really seem Bruce Wayne’s style. Nora and Killer Frost go to stop them but the car phases right through Killer Frost’s ice wall, and then just turns invisible.

Nora then starts talking over the radio to Weather Witch. She says she’s sorry and that she believes she wants a second chance. Hearing this, Weather Witch ices up the road under the car and stops Silver Ghost from running an unsuspecting Nora down. But she still escapes with Silver Ghost rather than turning herself in.

Back at S.T.A.R. Barry is out of the Pipeline and Caitlyn and Cisco are making up. She takes him to her dad’s metahuman lab and says they can use his research to maybe cure metas but only if the rule is that they won’t use it on anyone without their permission. This is for sure going to happen this season and drive a wedge between the team.

Finally, Nora goes back to see Eobard Thawne. He asks if she trusts him and she says no, but she’s willing to give him time. He says that time is the one thing he doesn’t have and looks up at a clock that is counting down from 51 minutes. We next week Sherloque in the Time Vault talking to Gideon. He asks her for all the files on Nora, only to find that Nora has deleted all the files on herself from Gideon’s storage!

This was a pretty middling episode of the Flash. I really liked the focus on Nora, as I love her character and I’m really interested in seeing what’s going on with Thawne, but the villain of the week this week was pretty rubbish. It looks like they’re intending her to be the new Captain Cold, which are big shoes I’m not sure she can fill. The Caitlyn and Cisco stuff is kind of annoying because you can see exactly where this storyline is going but they could still surprise me.

6.5/10

PS: Almost gave it 7/10 because of the episode title but nobody made any Fast & Furious reference so NO DICE CW.