The Flash season 5, episode 20 review: Gone Rogue

“We’re bringing her in before she steps anywhere near that building.” Minor spoilers for The Flash season 5, episode 20.

On The Flash, Nora has returned to the present, but instead of going back to Team Flash and her family, she joins a new team, The Rogues.

Nora creates this new version of the Rogues in order to commit a heist for a device that she needs for some unspecified reason.

Nora turns evil

For most of this season of The Flash, the best part of the season has been the family drama revolving around the West-Allen family and this episode is no exception. Coming off the back of last episode, Barry and Iris’s search for Nora is as emotionally charged as ever. Barry and Iris still feel slightly on the outs with each other, even if it isn’t played up as much as it was in the previous episode.

The real drama from the episode comes from the interactions between father and daughter. Barry’s mistakes actually feel like they have some consequence this time around and that he can’t just apologize his way out of mistakes. By having Nora internalize the Negative Speed Force as well, his mistakes are made all the more literal. He’s caused Nora pain, which is reflective in her red lightning, and he can’t just take it back.

This then brings up the empathy you feel towards Nora. She’s been hurt by someone whom she trusted with all of her being and that hurt is simply not going to disappear easily. This being a superhero show though, that pain becomes much more vicious because of the Negative Speed Force, which she’s internalized, causing her to seemingly become evil. The show has done an excellent job with Nora’s character this season and this episode does a really solid job of building up her character even more.

The Rogues are back

The various villains of the week that have had a bit more of backstory make another appearance in this episode, forming a new team of Rogues, which is very similar to how the first season set up the team. Bug-Eyed Bandit, Weather Witch, and Ragdoll do make an eclectic punch for Nora to try to recruit for this new team, but given that they are the few people that she’s interacted with in the present, it would make sense for her to turn to them.

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By using the Rogues here as well, it gives a proper reason for Cisco and Sherloque to have a heart to heart talk while they’re kidnapped, as well as upping Nora’s villain factor. She has to do very unlike Nora things to keep the Rogues calm, but also because she possibly feels like a proper villain now, even if she doesn’t want to. Bringing the Rogues back together simply feels like another visual manifestation of Nora’s frustration and anger though because they really aren’t used that much in this episode. When they are used though, they’re used well on a personal and action level.

The team is too big

This is very much a common thread this season, but the B-plot in this episode isn’t all that good at all and the supporting cast is way too big. Here though, it really feels like the writers had nothing else to do for Caitlyn and Ralph, so they just sent them to Caitlyn’s father’s lab. Caitlyn is mourning and Ralph is uncharacteristically feeling lonely and the play between the two just doesn’t work that well. This kind of furthers the Cicada storyline, but not really though.

This problem of chemistry expands to the humor of the episode as well. Humor has been a key portion of The Flash, but the humor in this episode simply doesn’t work at all in most places. The jokes don’t land and the chemistry doesn’t feel right.

The Flash continues its season trend of having a strong A-plot, but an extremely weak B-plot yet again in the latest episode.