Review: It's Thanksgiving in Central City on This Week's THE FLASH

Thanksgiving and the holiday season is all about spending time with your family and loved ones. That's exactly what happens on this week's episode of The Flash. It's Thanksgiving in Central City and BARRY and Iris are looking forward to their first Thanksgiving in the loft as a family, including Nora. Iris and Nora's relationship has continued to improve, they even go get mani-pedis together. However, after a heart-to-heart with her mom, Nora realizes that BARRY will always put his LIFE ON THE LINE to protect others.

Iris tells Nora that historically, Thanksgiving has been peaceful, but that's about to change when Mark Mardon's (the Weather Wizard) daughter, Joss, shows up at Iron Heights to break out her father. Apparently, she only wants to break him out so she can kill him, and later tries to drop a truck on him. Not exactly your typical father-daughter reunion story. Caitlin calls her the Weather Witch, which Cisco agrees to, we all know how Cisco likes to be in charge of nicknaming the villains. The Weather Witch's weather-manipulating abilities seem to be focused on lightning. When she puts a city block in danger by firing lighting at Mercury Labs, BARRY and Nora run to the scene, but BARRY is struck by lightning (again). This time it actually kills him, temporarily of course until Nora is able to revive him.

After the incident, Nora is cold towards BARRY and Iris, though she assures Iris its not her fault. Rather, Nora is angry at Barry. She is angry at BARRY because he constantly puts his life at risk, and sometimes he might not come back, and when he died fighting Weather Witch, she realized she lost her father once in the future and she can't bear to lose him again in the present. Many years of pent up anger come out all at once and insinuates that BARRY doesn't care about family, but now we have a better understanding of why Nora has been acting the way she has been all season.

This episode is also where we get Cicada's origin story in flashbacks. Cicada's name is Orlin. Orlin is a drunk and doesn't take care of himself but when the cops tell him that his sister died in a metahuman attack, his neice, Grace, becomes his responsibility. He tries and fails to be good to her until Grace gives him a piece of her mind in her school's principal's office. Orlin took this to heart and tried to build a better life for him and Grace. But then the Night of the Enlightenment happened, injuring them both, and Orlin swears to kill every metahuman. And after hacking the hospital's security system, Team Flash learns Cicada's identity.

In a bit of comic relief from all THE FAMILY drama, Sherloque convinces Caitlin and Cisco to boycott Thanksgiving after reminding them that their year has not been fantastic so what exactly are they celebrating. He also reminds them of the origins of Thanksgiving, to add a little bit of political correctness to the episode. Together they drink the day away and eat terrible food until Killer Frost comes out and tells them all to go to the Allen's Thanksgiving where they can eat good food.

The episode wraps up with a cheesy, heartwarming scene of the Team Flash family, even Sherloque, enjoying Thanksgiving together. BARRY and Nora reconcile when BARRY says he doesn't choose being THE FLASH over family, he chooses being THE FLASH for his family.

Photo Credit: Katie Yu/The CW

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