Seriously, Think Fast, while being a cute nod to Barry teaching Cisco and Caitlin how to operate in Flashtime, it also reflects a more cerebral episode.

Those opening 4 minutes were pure perfection. Seeing DeVoe unleash all of his abilities during a long hallway fight through an ARGUS facility was astonishing! It’s one of the highlights of the episode, for sure.

In the sub-plot, Cecile’s gestational telepathy becomes more of a problem when she stop reading minds and outright copies them. Shout out Danielle Nicolet for nailing both Caitlin and Joe’s mannerisms over the course of the episode, I can’t imagine it’s easy to emulate well established characters like that.

Gotta give love to Cisco for having a right go at Barry for his martyr complex. He makes soooo many good points that are bang on. It’s about time someone called him out on it.

Harry and Iris have an interesting side-story where they try to find Marlize DeVoe and while Iris has exhausted every tech option, Harry’s new-found emotional intelligence leads them right to her. It’s a good way to keep Harry involved while he’s the local village idiot. I don’t get Iris’s shortness with him though… Like, how’s she gonna handle kids if she can’t handle Harry’s silliness. I’m sure we’ll find out. But regardless, they find Marliize and seemingly turn her face so she’ll help the team in the finale.

Caitlin asks Cisco to vibe her past and we discover that she’s had Killer Frost since she was a child, despite the particle accelerator explosion happening decades later. This opens up new possibilities as now we can have metas not related to the dark matter explosion at all and don’t need to use it as a convenient crutch. Though this does add more mystery to Caitlin’s past which will no doubt be explored sometime next season.

Finally, after a dozen episodes of fucking about, DeVoe enacts his plan, utilising the the STAR Labs satellite to make up for the one Barry destroyed and, most chillingly of all, Gideon in the time vault. The episode ends with The Enlightenment beginning.

For the penultimate episode, this is more of what I was wanting from the show and I really enjoyed it, which is an odd feeling. I hope the momentum keeps up and we’ll see how all of this season’s elements come together and the identity of the Mystery Girl will be revealed in the final showdown with DeVoe in We Are The Flash.

True Colors (god, I can already see myself mispelling the article title because the Americans misspell everything with a ‘U’ in it) is actually a pretty good episode, which I wasn’t expecting. I’ve kinda fallen out of love with the CW recently (except for Black Lightning) because I’m starting to see repeating trends and boring, plodding, plots in all of them.

But despite knowing the broad strokes of this episode, I still kind of enjoyed it. Barry and the Bus Metas (which is a great name for a band) have a pretty good dynamic which I wish we could have focused more on and given all these one-note characters a little more depth. They’re all pretty much the same people as they were pre-capture. Not saying they can’t be assholes through-and-through but if that’s all they are, why should I care?

I think the only one who gets any real development was Becky Sharpe, aka Hazard, who seems to have learned her lesson while imprisoned and was genuinely on the path to going straight. AND THEN DEVOE TURNED UP and fucked everything up for everyone because that’s his raison d’etre.

He seemingly transfers his conciousness to the other Bus Metas but they all collapse/die until on Becky remains standing, with DeVoe in control of her. It’s heartbreaking to see another good person become a meat sleeve for DeVoe’s brainwaves and it seems Marlize DeVoe doesn’t seem too fond of her husband’s new lack of boundaries and love of wearing other people’s skin. I smell an 11th Hour face-turn!

Speaking of face turns, we find out about Ralphie’s secret ability, namely shape-shifting. While it’s mostly used for hi-jinks for funny CGI bits and trying to break up a Bus Meta Sale with Amunet Black as Warden Wolfe, it does come in handy when, during Barry’s appeal, Clifford DeVoe comes rolling in, completely unmurdered! Ralph, as DeVoe, spins a tale of vague recollections and waking up in his house while Marlize can’t say shit because everyone apart from the judge and the crowd know that isn’t DeVoe and it’s a great scene.

Another good scene is Caitlin trying to break Ralph out of his funk and after making no progress, breaks out Frost to take him to task. The continuing fusion of personalities would be interesting to watch but eventually, I hope we have Caitlin with ice powers and not this constant back and forth.

Overall, just a standard but fun episode to watch. With DeVoe seemingly after the Bus Metas now for his insidious plan, Ralph and the remaining unknown metas are in the crosshairs so we’ll just have to wait until next week to find out who Subject 9 actually is.

Throughout this season, I’ve lamented privately that The Flash is the weakest it’s been in a while but between Therefore I Am and this episode, I think DeVoe may well be the best villain we’ve had since Season 1!

I mean sure, Zoom was a cool villain in terms of pure dominance of power but Thawne’s cerebral machinations in the first season were really quite engaging and now that we’ve seen DeVoe’s plan play out; I’m confidant in my statement.

There’s a deleted scene available online showing Barry and Iris called back from their honeymoon early after Ralph trips an alarm while trying to find the button for Netflix. I can see why it was cut but Barry and Iris in tropical gear is kinda fun.

Caitlin is kidnapped by Amunet Black, played by Katee Sackhoff with a delightfully, awful British accent. But in a twist, she wants Caitlin, not Frost, to save the life of her latest meta acquisition; Dominic Lanse. More on him later.

We get a little look inside Amunet’s past and it’s hard to tell if she’s gone eccentric with power or if she was always this way. There’s a moment of earnestness when Amunet admits her respect for Caitlin as a doctor. I mean, she also threatens Caitlin’s life but it seemed genuine enough to me.

Meanwhile, Barry is kidnapped by DeVoe and taken to his secret lair! At first, I thought DeVoe was going to transfer his mind into Barry’s body ala Otto Octavius/Spider-Man but it’s not nearly that simple.

In the middle of a Christmas party at the Wests’, Dominic (having been rescued with Caitlin by Cisco and Ralph) arrives to a warm reception, even earning a nickname before Ralph, just as Barry has to leave and deal with an alarm at his apartment. He arrives and doesn’t notice anything really out of the ordinary until he receives a phonecall. From Dominic. It’s at this point the pieces fall into place and DeVoe’s Machiavellian plan comes to fruition.

As revealed in a flashback mid-conversation, Amunet was going to sell Dominic Lanse to DeVoe’s wife because of his formidable telepathic powers. DeVoe uses his chair to transfer his mind into Dominic’s body, which can withstand the rigors of hyper intelligence because of his telepathic ability.

After hearing all this, Barry notices a wedding gift, an ornate knife, he pointed out earlier and a trail of blood. He follows to find the dead body of DeVoe with obvious knife wounds in his chest.

Before Barry can even register the full breadth of what’s happened, Captain Singh kicks in the apartment door. Time slows and Barry contemplates running, it’s what he’s good at afterall, but he sees the pictures of him and Iris and the lightning fades.

It’s an incredibly strong character moment as he chooses to stay, knowing how his father was framed too, and stands his ground because he knows what it’s like to be abandoned.

The episode ends as Barry Allen is arrested and we have to wait until January next year to see how this will play out.

Don’t Run is a suspenseful mid-season finale that really gives us something to dig our teeth into and a plot to look forward to when the show returns and I’m very excited to see the new direction of the show! All of the CW shows have had interesting cliffhangers this year (as of writing, Supergirl has seemingly died and John Constantine has stowed away onboard the Waverider, waiting to see what Arrow has in store) and I can’t wait for these shows to be back in January so, for now, happy holidays and I’ll be back in a flash!