When does The Flash season 5 return on the CW?
The Flash, like the rest of the CW DC Comics/Arrowverse shows is still on winter break. New episodes will return on Jan. 15.
Barry Allen’s life was thrown for a loop at the end of season 4 when his teenage daughter Nora showed up on his doorstep asking for help. With what she didn’t say, but they still agreed to help her. In the early parts of season 5, it came out that Barry had vanished in the future and never returned. Nora wanted a chance to get to know her father, and that motivated her to go back in time and find him. But it’s starting to look like she may have had other motivations as well, so what were they?
The second half of the season should answer those questions. In fact, it might have already begun. Eobard Thawne has a well-known, rather heavy history with Barry. It turns out he helped Nora go back in time, and she’s still in contact with him. But it’s hard to believe that he would be helping her out of the goodness of his heart. If the Reverse Flash is back, in all likelihood he will return to his place as one of Barry’s greatest foes. Would that make Cicada only a veritable bystander?
Cicada has been built up as the ‘big bad’ for the season, but is that even true? His recently revealed connection to his niece certainly made him the most sympathetic villain The Flash has faced recently. Additionally, there’s a (speculative) theory that could make a lot of sense. To summarize it, the real villain is the Dr. Ambres, who has manipulated Orlin Dwyer by keeping his niece in a coma. So are all of those individuals going to coexist on the show?
That theory really began to take root when the show explored Orlin’s backstory in “O Come. All Ye Thankful.” Ambres was the one who Barry spoke to at the hospital about Grace, she was definitely a confidante of sorts for Orlin, and she was the one to suggest to him that the metas were the ones to blame. It actually gained traction in What’s Past is Prologue, because she was apparently one of the doctors involved at the beginning when Barry was struck by the lightning bolt. Nora’s relationship with Thawne (whatever it may be) also complicates things, because Thawne isn’t going to return to the show and not end up a major villain. That’s just not going to happen.
Thawne figures prominently in the promo for the next episode, “The Flash & The Furious.” His deal with Nora definitely has the potential to backfire, but its consequences aren’t clear, in large part because so little is known about the deal itself. So that’s another thing to look forward to in the remainder of The Flash season 5.