Eobard Thawne May Actually Be The Flash Season 5’s True Big Bad

Despite The Flash‘s current season being every bit as exciting as its first and second, at least in my view, I can’t overlook how Cicada is arguably the worst overarching villain the series has featured to date. I mean, not only is poor acting to blame, but he just doesn’t possess the gravitas of someone like the Reverse-Flash, Zoom or the Thinker – not to mention the fact that Killer Frost so easily handed him his ass during last night’s episode, “The Past is Prologue.”

So, now that Cicada has been seemingly dispatched, perhaps we’ll be able to move on to someone more entertaining, that being Eobard Thawne. Sure, he’s already been well established on this series and Legends of Tomorrow, but he’s most definitely Barry Allen’s greatest nemesis. Furthermore, I imagine those two will no doubt continue their deadly dance until this show takes its final bow.

In fact, it wasn’t that long ago when viewers – myself included – suspected Thawne of pulling Nora West-Allen’s strings. If you’ll remember, Sherloque Wells increased everyone’s curiosity level a few weeks ago when he confronted XS about her motive for traveling back to 2018 and altering the timeline.

Well, during the milestone 100th episode last night, we learned in the closing moments that she is, in fact, corresponding with an incarcerated Thawne existing in 2049. But what we don’t know is why. Obviously, his intentions are evil, though I’m guessing he’s succeeded in manipulating her.

Our biggest hint came during Nora and Barry’s time-spanning scavenger hunt earlier in the tale, when they confronted Thawne in the time vault, circa 2016. While there, Eobard took notice of Nora, thereby forcing me to believe that’s where he first got the idea to play her like a kazoo. Hey, time travel is a funny thing.

Truth be told, I started putting the puzzle together even more once she had the strangest reaction to seeing his Reverse-Flash suit in 2013 and soon after learned he was the one to have slaughtered her grandmother. Needless to say, it should be highly intriguing to see how Nora and Thawne’s encounters play out going forward – and what they mean to The Flash series as a whole.