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!

Because The Present can mean both the current period of tiiiiiiime because the show has a ton of time travel and an actual present like the apartment Barry gets for Iriiiiiiiiiiisssssss… Haaaaaaaaaa.

It’s a pity that my favourite part of this episode was over in less than 5 minutes because I could really go for more John Wesley Shipp and Mark Hamill. Reprising their respective Flash ’93 roles again is a pretty neat little gift for the audience, even if Earth-3’s Trickster looks… weird.

Seeing the veteran speedster gets his shit rocked by the uber intimidating Savitar was painful but only because of the really ropey CGI. I swear I saw the model went into it’s default stance after tossing Jay through a portal too. Choppy editing, that.

Tom Felton did a cracking job. Whether it was the disbelief of finding out Barry is the Flash or having Savitar speak through him, he gave a terrific performance throughout.

Much like HR training Wally! Fun times.

And Carlos Valdes, actually. He killed it with the guest-starring Nick Gonzales as undead projection, Dante.

I have to wonder how Barry can fuck up the future as well… I bet he can, because Savitar says he does and I can totally believe that, I just wonder how. I wonder if it’ll be a case of Iris-murder leading to Barry seriously damaging Savitar. We’ll see.

But what really put me in a foul mood with the absolutely insipid Christmas sections. It’s something I truly despise about television at this time of year. I took one look at the lavishly beautiful Christmas setup at the West house and I hated them all, because no Christmas looks like that and that kind of over saturated merriment is ever pervasive and taints what was an otherwise solid episode.

And that’s it for Flash Facts this year and probably the last you’ll see from me until the new year because there’s no way I’m covering the Doctor Who Christmas Special. I refuse. You couldn’t pay me to do it.

Anyway, we’ll be back in a Flash in the new year so Happy Holidays from your friendly, shit-tier reviewer – Sharp-O!