Spoilers The Flash - Season 5

[Turtletrekker]

The texts of the future newspapers depicting Crisis on Infinite Earths seemed to depict the reverse flash as the villain of the piece. I think that on top of trying to manipulate his way out of execution, Thawne is going to bump up the date of the Crisis up 5 years so that Barry is unprepared for it.

 

[Romulan_spy]

Spoiler: title of the finale

I wonder what the meaning of the title of the finale, "Legacy", will mean. Who's legacy? Barry's, Thawne's or Nora's? It might be a reference to Thawne's legacy if *this* Thawne does get executed but his legacy is how he helped Nora and helped defeat Cicada. Or maybe it is Nora's legacy if she sacrifices herself?

 

[Awesome Possum]

I've been assuming both that Thawne is using Nora and that he has genuine paternal feelings toward her. The two aren't mutually exclusive.

My guess is that Thawne uses Nora to escape execution and that (later in the show) Thawne somehow becomes integral in saving Barry in the future.

Thawne did mention that he had some feelings for Barry after being his mentor, his hate just overrode them. It’s why I always felt he was the best big bad the show ever had.

 

[Mr. Adventure]

At least Joe has the sense to try to shoot Cicada.

 

[Christopher]

It's surprising that there are so many "civilian" metas in Central City. But nice to know, because it means the percentage of metas who turn to crime is smaller than it appeared before now.

And really, Team Flash? You arrange for a public announcement that the city's metas should congregate at CCPD all at once, and you're surprised to learn that Cicada has gone after them there?

It took me a few moments after the end of the episode to realize what was going on with Thawne and the dagger. The dagger is what's damping his powers so they can imprison and execute him. Remove the dagger from the past and it means he was never caught -- or more likely, they'll play fast and loose with causality as usual and just have the dagger vanish in the future at the "same time" it's destroyed in the present.

Meanwhile, Sherloque sending Renee to his Earth to be safe is probably setting up his departure to be with her at the end of the season, so we can get a new Wells the following year. I hope the next one is less annoying.

 

[Finn]

I had assumed the existence of Cicada had to something to do with Thawne's incarceration. My issue is...how did they get the dagger if they thought Dwyer-Cicada had disappeared. They didn't talk as if he was stopped prior to his disappearance. It was implied he simply stopped....

Nora has to be a time remnant now, as the 2049 she knew is long gone by now, even if the "current" version still has the Flash disappearing. Iris still raised a girl she knew would grow up and go to Thawne....


Also, Grace seemed to know too much about Team Flash and their history... Who's she working with? I think there are still pieces of the puzzle missing...

 

[Romulan_spy]

It took me a few moments after the end of the episode to realize what was going on with Thawne and the dagger. The dagger is what's damping his powers so they can imprison and execute him. Remove the dagger from the past and it means he was never caught -- or more likely, they'll play fast and loose with causality as usual and just have the dagger vanish in the future at the "same time" it's destroyed in the present.

Probably the latter because it makes for more dramatic television to have the dagger vanish from Thawne's chest and have Thawne escape seconds before they flip the switch. But "realistically", the dagger should vanish in the past and Thawne was never captured. So he should just vanish completely from his execution.

 

[Christopher]

But "realistically", the dagger should vanish in the past and Thawne was never captured. So he should just vanish completely from his execution.

Which is also what should've happened when Eddie killed himself in the first-season finale, but instead it just changed things going forward instead of retroactively. So it would at least be consistent for the same thing to happen here, although it would be absurd for an event in 2019 to have no effect on the timeline until 30 years later. Unless you assume that all of Nora's time travels between those two points have "entangled" them somehow so that they're in causal sync with each other.

 

[Finn]

^except we've mostly only seen 2049 inside that prison. We haven't seen Joe's house which I'd bet changed in the manner we saw in the movie Frequency with every passing episode.... For all we know, Nora's friend might be actually alive...

 

[Tuskin38]

So they were torturing Thawne with the negative speed force? I wonder if they do that with all their Meta prisoners, hurting them with their own power.

 

[Christopher]

So they were torturing Thawne with the negative speed force? I wonder if they do that with all their Meta prisoners, hurting them with their own power.

That seems like a really, really bad idea, though. "I have you now, Superman! Suffer under this unfiltered yellow sunlight!" Oopsie.

I thought the evil warden just meant they were using electricity/lightning to torture him, but I guess the red color of the lightning does imply the NSF.

 

[Romulan_spy]

So they were torturing Thawne with the negative speed force? I wonder if they do that with all their Meta prisoners, hurting them with their own power.

That seems like a really, really bad idea, though. "I have you now, Superman! Suffer under this unfiltered yellow sunlight!" Oopsie.

I thought the evil warden just meant they were using electricity/lightning to torture him, but I guess the red color of the lightning does imply the NSF.

Cicada's dagger is nullifying Thawne's powers. So basically he is reduced to a normal human who is being subjected to speed force lightning. Yeah, that would be horrible torture.

I imagine when Thawne breaks free, he will flat out murder the evil warden and the other guards.

 

[Kirk Prime]

I love how they dealt with this. Thawne's plan is brilliant. It was all about destroying the dagger in the past.

Of course, if the dagger is destroyed in 2019, wouldn't it have made it impossible to hold him, and he never would have been in jail to meet Nora.

 

[Romulan_spy]

I love how they dealt with this. Thawne's plan is brilliant. It was all about destroying the dagger in the past.

Yep. We knew Thawne was up to something but his plan is genius.

Of course, if the dagger is destroyed in 2019, wouldn't it have made it impossible to hold him, and he never would have been in jail to meet Nora.

This appears to be a time paradox. But I would assume it would just create an alternate timeline.

 

[Awesome Possum]

So I wonder if this will send Nora back to her time without knowing how to use her powers or will her Speed Force abilities protect her.

 

[Christopher]

So I wonder if this will send Nora back to her time without knowing how to use her powers or will her Speed Force abilities protect her.

If the show remains true to its usual temporal "logic," the world will change going forward but everyone will still remember how it was before the change.

 

[Kirk Prime]

What also is interesting is if the dagger is destroyed in 2019, and the dagger is what held Thawne in place in 2049, then how long was Thawne in prison and how would have have been kept there in the first place, unless they used other meta dampening tech?

Presumably, you would think that since the ability to capture Thawne does exist in 2019, his capture in 2040something didn't require the dagger and they would have some other means to control him.

But it sure looks like they will destroy the dagger in 2019, it will disappear in 2049, and Thawne will escape.

I'm really hoping that somehow, all of this leads to the Tornado Twins' existence. Imagine this scenario--the dagger is destroyed, which leads to a series of events that prevents Nora's birth. However, Nora still exists as a time remnant, no different than how Thawne still exists despite Eddie killing himself.

In the new timeline, Nora is never born, but her parents and everyone still remember her because she is a time remnant. She can even remain on the show. It might even be a cool cliffhanger to have either Bart Allen or the Tornado Twins appear and Nora be like "WTF?"

Either way, I really hope next season they break it into two arcs instead of one. One villain for a whole year is repetitive and requires too much filler.

 

[dahj]

Eobard is somehow still alive even though his direct ancestor died before having any children so anyone's guess really how the timeline works when he's involved.

 

[Awesome Possum]

Thawne’s timeline is probably so timely-wimey that fully erasing him would be like erasing the Doctor from Doctor Who.

 

[tomalak301]

I really enjoyed that episode last night, but man it would have been so much better if they hadn't waited till the season finale to actually reveal what Thawne's plan was. We could have had a great final few episodes if this episode came like 4 episodes ago. This season has suffered because of the lack of planning for a full season and it's a shame because there is a lot of good stuff here.