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We’ll all have forgotten Cicada ever existed by November, but turning Arrowverse metas into half-assed Marvel mutants is unforgiveably lazy. Even worse than Cicada, the metahuman cure has felt glaringly out of place all season, a device swiped from bottom of the barrel X-Men stories, and changing the very nature of how metahumans see themselves and are seen in the Arrowverse for the very worst. The metahuman cure, since its very introduction, has very quietly been the absolute worst. So what does Cisco do? At episode’s end he lets a calculated line from Thawne taking credit for giving him his powers to get in his head and motivate him to take the cure. But that aside, she gives Cisco her blessing and total understanding of where things have to be if he is to lead a double life. It feels obligatory, like a plot point from an index card that was mistakenly shuffled into this episode’s story. But did we spend enough time with them as a couple to make this feel earned this season? Does this seem like it should be the priority in the season finale of all episodes? The answer is no. Again, in a different episode, this is an important moment. Thousands of lives are at stake, but Cisco needs to go confess that he’s a metahuman, complete with a display of his powers right in the middle of Jitters.
#THE FLASH SEASON 5 EPISODE 21 FULL#
You need validation for your existence as a meta? Look no further, dude.Īnd then what do they do? Instead of having Cisco, one of the most brilliant minds on a team full of brilliant minds, continue to look for a Cicada solution? Caitlin tells him to go make time with his girlfriend. There is literally nothing better or more noble or more helpful that he can possibly do with his powers in that moment. He saves his friend, currently trapped in a hideously deformed, and presumably quite painful state, with his powers.
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Cisco uses his powers to “shock” Ralph essentially back to life. In fact, we may as well get into the Cisco problem, because it’s a big one. Were this a different point in the season, they could have gotten an entire episode out of this, instead it’s resolved by Cisco using his powers (at Sherloque’s urging) with no greater consequence than Ralph speaking in reverse syntax for a few scenes. From the opening on Ralph’s “kinetically inverted” form (the result of the awkwardly edited cliffhanger with the mirror gun from last week’s episode), this just felt like “business as usual.” We got a cool, disturbing visual of Ralph in this bizarre geometric form, and he dramatically blurts out “Cicada…Thawne…Dagger.” But what was the point of this? It affects nothing whatsoever in the ultimate stakes of the episode, it’s just a leftover idea in a season that had to pack plenty of those into one hour. “Legacy” never, not even in its better moments, felt like a proper season finale. Rescued only by the anti-heroics of Eobard Thawne in its final half, The Flash season 5 finale is the muddied, logical endpoint of a season that started with tremendous promise, lost its way, and never quite managed to find its way back on track. As a season finale? It’s almost unacceptable. Taken completely in isolation, “Legacy” would be an acceptably middle of the road episode of The Flash.