She may not be the “Mystery Girl” anymore on The Flash, but there are still quite a few secrets about Nora Allen that have yet to be revealed — until tonight.
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Spoilers for tonight’s episode of The Flash, “News Flash”, below.
In tonight’s episode, Iris (Candice Patton) made serious efforts to bond with Nora (Jessica Parker Kennedy), including an attempt at an elaborate homemade breakfast that only proved that her efforts weren’t working, and Iris can’t cook — something that apparently remains true even in the future. Despite Iris’ efforts Nora continued to be detached and cold towards her and didn’t give Iris her new phone number. Nora even went so far as to favor another blogger’s — Spencer Young (Kiana Madeira) — site over Iris’.
Even though Spencer ultimately ends up being the villain Spin, Spencer help bring to light some of Nora’s secrets. For starters, Nora thinks Spencer is cute and when she comes face to face with her specifically for the purpose of determining whether the fame-hungry pseudo journalist is a metahuman, Nora is so flustered and distracted that she can’t do it. Iris has to intervene, which leads to the other major reveal about Nora.
It seems that the reason Nora is so cold and borderline hostile towards Iris is that, in the future, Iris implants a power-dampening chip into her. Nora then grows up with no idea she’s a metahuman with powers, at least not until six months before her arrival in 2018. Nora reveals the still red scar to her mother before storming off. We don’t get a reason as to why Iris made this decision, but we do find out that 2018 Iris ultimately is okay with her future self’s division and Barry (Grant Gustin) backs her play, too.
Nora’s interest in Spencer seems to indicate that she is likely the new LGBTQ character mentioned during the show’s panel at San Diego Comic-Con in July. At the time fans speculated that it could be Nora and that it’s Nora’s sexuality that would cause an issue for Iris, but now we know that it’s the power dampening chip that drove the wedge between mother and daughter. That chip might ultimately be a clue to the trajectory the entire Arrowverse is on as it heads towards the “Elseworlds” crossover, but also is very in keeping with the comics history of Iris and Barry’s canon daughter, Dawn Allen.
In comics, the future Dawn lives in is one where metahumans are exploited and the planet was plagued with rampant xenophobia. It was so bad that Iris encouraged Dawn and her brother, Don, to hide their powers to protect them. If the future on The Flash really is that bleak, it could tie into another, bleak version of the future we’ve seen before — in the Legends of Tomorrow episode “Star City 2046”.
What did you think about these new reveals about Nora? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below.
The Flash airs Tuesdays at 8/7c on The CW.
