The Flash season 5, episode 18 review: Godspeed

“I am the god of speed.” Minor spoilers for The Flash season 5, episode 18 follow.

With the truth about Nora working with Thawne revealed, Team Flash needs to figure out how to handle this new knowledge about Nora.

In order to reveal this information about the future, the team must look in Nora’s journal, which explains her story.

There’s more to this story

This week’s episode of The Flash definitely takes a cue from Arrow with this week’s episode and features a flash-forward to the year 2049. Because of the time travel though, it’s not so much a flash-forward for Nora as her past, which makes it a bit more fun this time around. It’s like reading a history book of the future. Really though, using this flash-forward device was an effective way to tell Nora’s story as to why she began working with Thawne and how she got her powers activated. There’s also a great Lady Gaga “oldie” joke because of the time setting.

Because this episode explores Nora discovering her powers as well, there’s definitely season 1 The Flash vibes. Amidst all of the dark, there’s a joy present in this episode that the show hasn’t nailed in what seems like years, which is a nice change of pace for the show. This is the tone where the show was at its best, so it’s great to see that tone return, even if it may be for this one episode. While having that tone, it balances the darker tone of seeing Nora’s anger develop that had been dealt with earlier in the season.

The reasoning presented in this episode as to why Nora gains her powers and ventures to Thawne for advice makes sense as well. There had to be a good reason for Nora to go to Thawne for any guidance and bringing a new speedster into the fray is perfect enough reason to do that, especially when there’s no one else she feels she can turn to.

Find out why she lied. #TheFlash starts NOW! pic.twitter.com/xpJmHiwlj3
— The Flash (@CW_TheFlash) April 17, 2019

Enter, Godspeed

The fact that Godspeed is already being introduced, not even three years after being introduced in the comics, is awesome. Godspeed is a fascinating villain in the comics and to see him being used in this capacity in the show so soon is so fun to see. Having a villain with a god-complex makes so much sense for a show like The Flash, where there are people who can literally run through time, and it’s about time that they introduced a villain like that. Plus, he looks incredible.

What they do with him is extremely interesting and different from the comics in a great way. It’s done in a way that makes the god-complex that he exhibits laughably pathetic and makes him seem like a con-man.

The only problem with Godspeed is that they don’t use him enough in this episode. He’s terrifying when he’s on-screen, but what depth he has comes from being a fan of the character in the comics. This actual episode doesn’t do the best job of developing him as a villain, at least right now.

Thawne is different

Thawne in this episode feels decidedly different than he has pretty much any other time on this show. It’s an interesting decision to finally show him in a different light in this episode. This entire season has been presenting him in a different way, but because it’s Thawne, no one should trust his motives. This episode makes that change slightly. He still doesn’t seem like he’s on the side of the angels, but he doesn’t seem entirely evil either.