The Flash Season 5: 3 Ups & 3 Downs From ‘Cause And XS’

2. Return Of Time Travel

Having a show with a ton of speedsters on it has presented The Flash's writers with a lot of opportunities to play with space and time itself over its four-year run. Of course, they got a little too enthusiastic with the device in the show's third season and have used it sparingly ever since. But the good thing about that is that they can whip it out on occasion because it's always a reliable source for entertainment. 'Cause and XS' was a perfect example of that.

Nora's attempts to save all the members of Team Flash saw her travel back through time a whopping 53 times as she tried her utmost to figure out how to ultimately defeat Cicada. In doing so, she had to watch her family/friends die over and over again. Much like it has done in the past, the use of time travel added some real stakes to the episode and reinforced that, despite her abilities, she was still unable to overcome death itself without the right plan.

Furthermore, it set the stage for Barry to deliver an important speech to his daughter, outlining the dangers of time travel. Using Jay Garrick's post-Flashpoint metaphor, he told Nora that altering the timeline can ultimately break it and, no matter how much you subsequently try to fix it, the cracks will always remain. It was a fulfilling moment of clarity for Barry Allen (a.k.a. the king of timeline meddling) that also contradicted Thawne's theory about the timeline being malleable - setting up an interesting conflict for Nora going forward.

The Flash is at its best when time travel is involved and it was, without a doubt, great to see it featured in such prominent fashion once more.