Time Bomb

"I used to think that keeping secrets from people for their own good was a noble decision, that it would protect them. But when you do that, you just rob those people from making their own decisions."

—Barry Allen to Nora West-Allen

"Time Bomb"
Information
Season 5 » Episode 17
Episode number	109 of 184
Original airdate	March 19, 2019
Written by	Kristen Kim Sterling Gates
Directed by	Rob Greenlea
Guest stars
Sarah Carter as older Grace Gibbons/Cicada Victoria Park as Kamilla Hwang Catherine Lough Haggquist as Vickie Bolen
Chronology
Preceded by	"Failure is an Orphan"
Followed by	"Godspeed"

"Time Bomb" is the seventeenth episode of the fifth season of The Flash, and the one-hundred-ninth episode overall. It aired on March 19, 2019.

Synopsis

Team Flash finds out that a suburban mom named Vickie Bolen is in danger and they race to save her. Upon meeting her, they discover she's a meta-human who is hiding her abilities from her family. Barry encourages Vickie to share her secret with her family, which makes Nora realize she needs to come clean with her parents about Thawne.[src]

Trivia

• The episode's title is referenced when John Bolen refers to his wife Vickie as being a "human time bomb" due to her meta-human powers.
• The episode's title also has the same name as the TV Show Wonder Woman Season 3 Episode 7.
• When Ralph keeps getting the waiter's name wrong at Jitters he says "Larry" to which the waiter corrects him saying that it's "Jason", a possible reference to "Cause and XS" when Nora kept changing names in Jitters over and over again by going back in time.
• Many items from previous seasons appear in the Starchives:
  • The helmet Barry wore when Team Flash was testing his speed for the first time on the Ferris Air runway in "Pilot".
  • The vacuum cleaner that Cisco, Caitlin and Felicity used to fool Captain Cold in "Going Rogue".
  • The Time Sphere that Team Flash built in order to send Eobard Thawne back to his time in "Fast Enough".
  • The B.O.O.T. which Team Flash has used through Season 2 and Season 4.
  • The Speed Force bazooka from Season 3.
  • The Flash suit from Season 4.
• Cisco mentions "Operation: Shazam", before proceeding to scratch into the Time Sphere what looks to be a lightning bolt, a reference to the DC hero of the same name.
• While talking with Kamilla, Cisco remarks that what they are doing is as important as "not Penny’s boat", this is a reference to a famous scene in the finale of season 3 of Lost.
• This episode marks the first time on The Flash when the main villain is killed off before the season finale.
• When Ralph says he "Peter Parker'd" Kamilla, he references the character's radioactive mutation and being a "Spider-person", as well as doing the famous Spider-Man "thwip" motion.
• When Sherloque takes out the Time Sphere plans, there's writing on it that says, "Neutron Flows cannot be reversed", a reference to a recurring line from the Classic TV series Doctor Who.
• When Sherloque is analyzing Nora's diary, a line mentions Game of Thrones not ending in 2019, as it is expected to in the real world.
• The way Sherloque exposes Nora and her secret is very similar to how Sherlock Holmes would expose a criminal at the end of a story.