The Flash: Ranking Every Season From Worst To Best

The fifth season is, by and large, an improvement over Season 4 but it wasn't able to stop itself from falling victim to a number of the same issues that plagued it.

Though Nora West-Allen's arrival spiced the dynamic up nicely, she quickly became a crutch that the writers relied on over and over again and that plot device grew wearisome early with the confrontational West-Allen daughter refusing to learn from her mistakes. The resulting episodes grew repetitive while the the narrative got thinner.

Speaking of repetitive, however, nothing was more annoying than the incredibly dull Cicada - who showed up, mumbled a few 'This Ends Now's before retreating at the first sign of defeat. And to make matters worse, Team Flash allowed it to happen every single time.

There was some promise in there with the Nora stuff and Thawne's return reinvigorated things late in the game, resulting in a finale that might just be The Flash's single best episode in years, but all the good was undercut by the shortcomings of the primary storylines.