'The Flash' Season 5 Could Steal a Huge 'Avatar: The Last Airbender' Twist
We’re now more than halfway through The Flash Season 5, and Team Flash might be gearing up towards a resolution that could come to greatly resemble the finale of Avatar: The Last Airbender, of all things. Rather than defeat Cicada in a direct confrontation — which Barry almost did last week — the new plan is to nerf Cicada’s power with the meta-human cure.
Part of that ongoing plan might also herald the return of Wally West to the show temporarily. All this after a new plan to try and wake Gracie up from her coma to appeal to Cicada’s humanity as a father fails miserably.
Full spoilers follow for The Flash Season 5, Episode 12: “Memorabilia.”
The A-plot has Sherloque ship a machine from an alternate reality to Earth-1 that allows people to enter the subconscious of others. Team Flash wants to use it to help heal Gracie’s mind and get her out of that coma, all in the hopes that Cicada might reconsider his murderous ways. But after Nora enters by herself, afraid someone might discover that she’s secretly working with the Reverse-Flash, she becomes trapped and it’s up to Barry and Iris to save her.
While Nora travels through Gracie’s memories, Barry and Iris travel through Nora’s, offering an intriguing look at her memories of the future in the Flash Museum. While there, we also learn in a new version of the alternate future that this version of Cicada is never caught, and that he goes on to be the Flash’s deadliest adversaries with more than 100 murders.
The episode plays like a mix between something like “The Runaway Dinosaur” or that time Wally got trapped in the Speed Force, but also the Supergirl-Flash musical crossover. It’s basically a nightmarish dreamscape, especially when Gracie proves to be just as murderous as her uncle, manifesting an alternate version of herself as an adult female Cicada, knife powers and all.
Thankfully, Cisco’s been working on that meta-human cure for several episodes now, and he’s getting close enough that Team Flash now sees this as their only viable option.
When the threat of the Big Bad is too overwhelming, then why not simply take away the power that makes them a threat? That’s exactly what Aang did at the end of Avatar: The Last Airbender. He might’ve mastered control over all four primary elements, but he was also able to bend the energy of the villainous Lord Ozai to take away his fire-bending powers, rendering him just like any other human as a result.
It’s starting to look like The Flash Season 5 is speeding towards a similar resolution.
Cisco is finally starting to get over his ex on 'The Flash'.
Cisco realizes while flirting with a bartender that if he had the DNA of two siblings, one a meta-human and one not, then he might be able to make a major breakthrough in his work on the cure. We’ll do everyone the favor of wracking their brains to point out the siblings Cisco is bound to use is none other than Wally and Iris.
After all, showrunner Todd Helbing confirmed in August 2018 that actor Keiynan Lonsdale would reprise his role as Wally West in the Season 5 premiere and then two more episodes this season. It might not be next week, but expect Wally to show up at some point very soon.
The Flash airs Tuesday nights on The CW at 8 p.m. Eastern.
