Season 5 of “The Flash” premiered this past week and picked up right where Season 4 left off–with Barry and Iris’ daughter coming to see them from the future! With speedster’s–time travel and parallel time lines or universes don’t even surprise us anymore. What is surprising is her reasons for being in their timeline at all. Although she claims it is because she is losing her speed and can’t get back into the speed force, Barry is able to deduce very quickly that something else is going on. She doesn’t seem to want to spend any time with anyone but Barry, and she knows every detail about them and their lives from a museum in the future dedicated to The Flash.
After inquiring further, Barry realizes that his daughter has never mentioned him in the future, and after Wally reports that she can’t be sent back because she is actually losing speed, Barry goes to corner her. She admits that in the future he goes missing. He disappeared shortly after she was born and is still missing. Barry is devastated but does not share the news with his wife, Iris, or anyone else from Team Flash.
Meanwhile, they are still on high alert to capture the new meta, Gridlock, who absorbs power and only increases in strength. They find that he is on a plane and means to crash it! Quickly, Barry, Nora and Wally are vibed up to the plane and realize their only chance is to phase the plane through a building for it to land safely and no one to get hurt. Nora has never phased before but Barry talks her through it, just as Harry once talked him through it, and disaster is averted!
By this time, Cisco and Caitlin have figured out how to solve Nora’s speed problem (even though she doesn’t really have one). But Barry tells the team that maybe she doesn’t need to go back just yet. They can’t understand why, but Barry wants to spend more time with her, and the two of them want to figure out how to stop him from ever disappearing at all.
The episode ends with Gridlock being transferred to a maximum security facility, when his transport vehicle is attacked and a new villain steps onto the scene–one who is determined to kill meta’s. This scene is important because it alludes to not only a future villain on The Flash, but a future villain who will probably appear on all of the CW super hero shows. We see evidence of this in the season premiere of SuperGirl when the same villain starts going after aliens as well in an attempt to “reclaim” the earth for humans alone. It will be interesting to watch the cross-over episodes this season!
