FLASH SPOILER Review: Episode 5×07- “O Come, All Ye Thankful”

The Flash (5×07)- “O Come, All Ye
Thankful”

Written by: Jonathan Butler & Gabriel Garza

Directed by: Sarah Boyd

I know what
you’re thinking. Flash episode, just before the winter hiatus the crossover
episode looming on the horizon, and using the title of a famous Christmas
Carol… It’s the Thanksgiving Episode and you’d be right.

Anyway, I’m
back from the Land of the Rising Sun and as I said, the winter hiatus is coming
up so I’ll loop back around and pick up the two episodes I missed then but for
now let’s get this week’s episode squared away.

So what do
we have for our Thanksgiving episode? Well at a glance we have some writers
with some serious holiday angst but that’s neither here nor there.

Barry’s
tracked down a lead on Cicada based on injuries suffered the night of The
Enlightenment. But Cicada’s doctor friend runs interference and since it’s at
the start of the episode Barry doesn’t press.
We then see through a series of flashbacks how Orlin took in Grace after
her parents died in a meta attack. It’s
the typical blue-collar loser is forced to grow up to take care of his niece… Kinda like the movie Big Daddy…

Until a supervillain drops a satellite on them forcing the guy to take on a
life of crime.

Most of the
rest of the episode is split between Holiday shenanigans and the new Weather
Wiz… Make that Weather Witch. Joss is the daughter of Mark
Mardon and she’s looking to bust her dad out of jail. Not to spend the Holidays with him but to
kill him.

Meanwhile,
Nora’s abandonment issues rear their ugly head when Barry’s heart stops after
an early attack by Weather Witch. Nora
is understandably upset considering she hasn’t even been conceived yet and her
dad nearly died but she takes it to an extreme when she begs Barry to give up
being the Flash.

Last and
very much least, the holiday shenanigans.
Sherloque and Cisco are enlisted by our writers to be that one relative
that just has to be woke during Thanksgiving.
You know, the one that won’t shut up about politics because they’re
bitter about breakups or divorces and everyone quietly agrees not to invite
them to Christmas. (Tough love time: If you don’t know which relative this is,
I’m sorry to break it to you…) This arc
ends with Caitlin, Cisco and Sherloque getting drunk before Killer Frost reads
them the riot act about not spending time with their loved ones instead of
brooding. It’s all very paint by
numbers.

The episode,
despite being very light on substance was enjoyable and Reina Hardesty and Liam
McIntyre were good as father and daughter villains. Another person to probably keep an eye on is
Julianne Christie as the new warden of Iron Heights. Just a gut feeling but when a warden is out
to show what a good job they’re doing in the DC Universe it’s rarely a good
thing. See…

In the end,
this wasn’t a ground breaking episode but you don’t always need to break ground
to work. Last year for the when they
show The Thinker’s origin I called the producers out for putting out an episode
in such that it seemed like they were just trying to get the story out of the
way. They did a much better job this
time so I’m happy.

I guess that
means it’s time to wrap things up.