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TV REVIEWS: FTN Reviews The Flash Season 5 Episode 13: Goldfaced

February 6th, 2019 by Todd Black Comments

I’ll admit, I was very curious how they were going to handle the character of Goldface, who is one of the Flash’s Rogues but easily not one of the best of them (though he did kill the Green Lantern Tomar-Re, so that’s notable). And for the most part, the episode did well, but when it focused on the other elements…it suffered.

The danger that this particular back half of the season is falling into is the “I know how to beat Cicada!” trap. First is was the time-traveling to make the perfect weapon for the danger. But that failed. Then it was about waking Grace up, then that failed. And tonight, it was about getting a device to stun Cicada long enough for the Cure to take hold in him. If you couldn’t guess the pattern…that failed too.

I’m all for very creative ideas for stopping the bad guy, and not spending too much time on any particular one, but there’s a difference between doing that and doing that with little to no progress. Especially when you end every episode with “oh, here’s a new idea!”, which is exactly what Iris did when she stabbed Cicada in his true weak spot.

The meeting of Goldface and the heist were easily the highlights of the episode, bar none. It was well done, well acted, and the story was believable. Barry even admitted his mistakes when it came to how he tried to help everyone which put them in a bad situation. Even Ralph was good in this episode in regards to trying to save Barry from his own darkness. And that shootout in total 80’s style was great…albeit very unbelievable given their level of skill with guns beforehand.

Sadly, the other storylines failed to measure up. To be fair, Iris struggling to find her journalistic flow was a great storyline, as it would’ve been folly given her recent hiatus from journalism to just jump right back in and be great. BUT, going and finding Cicada’s house and entering it ALONE?!??! Really? And there’s no way that Cicada should’ve played it that cool when it was clear that Iris broke into his place. Moreso, the fight between them was fun, yet flawed, though the final blow did connect the dots to earlier in the season.

The Sherloque/Nora storyline was eye-rolling as all get out. They keep trying to flesh out Sherloque but it honestly keeps backfiring. And while it was fun to think about how Thawne would get Sherloque off his tail (There’s always a Wells), the results were terrifying to behold. From Nora setting him up with a future ex-wife (who is a meta, that was a nice twist), to him meeting four of his ex-wives (makes you wonder about No.5), and to him bouncing back and getting a new mystery…it just wasn’t worth it. I’d rather more time have been spent on the heist and seeing Barry use his skills (actual science skills) in action rather than this.

In the end, “Goldfaced” did some things well, but failed on others, and it did drag it down.

Todd Black is reader of comics, a watch of TV (a LOT of TV), and a writer of many different mediums. He's written teleplays, fan-fictions, and currently writes a comic book called Guardians (guardians-comic.com). He dreams of working at Nintendo, writing a SHAZAM! TV series, and working on Guardians for a very long time!