Catching Up: The Flash Episode 507, "Oh Come All Ye Thankful"

It's Thanksgiving on THE FLASH, and the parallel themes running triplicate through this plot are all about fathers and daughters, and the relationships that build between them.

On the primary front, we see Nora (JESSICA PARKER KENNEDY) lashing out at The Flash (GRANT GUSTIN) after seeing him nearly die from a lightning strike after he outraced the lightning bolt to stop a massive explosion. This triggers her repressed anger at her dad because in her timeline, the future, she blames him for being The Flash over being a father, sacrificing himself without thinking about what it would do to her. It's another case of "Who is XS going to be angry at this episode?" But when she and Flash are put into a situation where dozens will die if he doesn't act, she comes to terms with the decisions he has to make. Hopefully, she's run out of family members to be angry at, having found a new pride in her mom, Iris (CANDICE PATTON), when she saw her mom dive off a roof to save a trapped Barry. (And about that: Yes, objects fall at the same rate regardless of their weight -- we've seen the argument. But that only holds true in a vacuum. We can assume that, in a big city, there are warm thermals that may have slowed Barry's descent, said thermals being blocked by the spread of his body and the chair so that an aerodynamically diving Iris could, in fact, fall faster and catch him to unlock him.)

The vilain who puts our heroes into this situation is Joss Mardon, the Weather Witch (REINA HARDESTY), the daughter of Weather Wizard Mark Mardon (LIAM MCINTYRE). Her goal is to break her estranged daddy out of prison so she can kill him for abandoning her and her mother years ago. The feisty storm-chaser gets the power to do so from a piece of meta-technology from the fallen dark matter satellite that affected her experimental weather vane, which allows her to control weather in much the same way her daddy could with his metahuman abilities.

Interspersed throughout the main action, the hunt for Cicada continues, and Sherloque Wells (TOM CAVANAGH) has narrowed down the suspect list, prompting a visit to the hospital and a young comatose girl (ISLIE HIRVONEN). The girl's parents are dead, however, so the notion that her father might be the elusive Cicada gets put to rest. This is, in fact, true -- her father is dead. But her uncle, Orlin Dwyer (CHRIS KLEIN), is very much alive and it's only a matter of time before Sherloque figures this out. Meanwhile, we get to see "The Secret Origin of Cicada" in flashbacks, as the entry of his young niece into his life takes him from a self-hating person to a capable parent, magnifying the tragedy of them both being injured in the satellite explosion.

The Thanksgiving dinner is also saved in this episode, after Cisco (CARLOS VALDES) and Caitlin (DANIELLE PANABAKER) try to explain the meaning of the holiday to Sherloque, only to find his jaded attitude is contageous and they become the Ebenezer Scrooges of Turkey Day. Fortunately, Killer Frost emerges from Caitlin to put them all in their place.

A fun episode overall, with a good backstory for Cicada. Still not sure how I feel about the idea of metatech (no, actually, I still hate that), but I'll allow it for the sake of the storytelling in this episode.