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.

Therefore I Am does a lot of good to redeem this season for me because it lays out exactly what the threat for this season is and it’s a doozy! DeVoe’s origin is something that takes us all the way back to the night of the particle accelerator explosion and nicely retcons certain events to include this new information.

Clifford DeVoe, from the outset, is a very understandable and relatable character; a brow-beaten teacher that struggles to engage with his students but, with the help of his wife and fellow teacher, and devises a ‘thinking cap’ to boost his intelligence.

Naturally, being around the time of the particle accelerator explosion, things don’t quite go to plan and while DeVoe’s intelligence is boosted, his body is slowly dying. We see him struggle with the fact that while his abilities can do good, it’s killing him while others are using their powers for evil and getting on with their life, which naturally turns him evil because he’s really gotten the short end of the stick, honestly.

I do like that DeVoe’s origin serves as a dark mirror to Barry’s and while he’s still clearly evil now, there’s still enough good to level with Barry about everything and to even allow him and Iris to get married in peace. At least from him, anyway…

Meanwhile, we see Barry’s impetuousness and desire to be proactive against this new threat have consequences as he is suspended for harassing the DeVoe’s without probable cause. While the rest of Team Flash rightfully admonish his behaviour initially, they back-peddle super hard once his suspicions are confirmed which I find odd because his behaviour is still sketchy as hell.

Luckily, the return of Wally means that the threat can be dealt with twice as fast! It’s great to have Keiynan Lonsdale back though I can’t be the only one who wished we could have seen his battle against Starro in Blue Valley. Also, if Wally’s back, how come he’s completely absent from next week’s mega-crossover? Why does Kid Flash always get side-lined!?

A really good episode this week and I’m excited to see more mind games with The Thinker going forward but before that, we’ll be taking a detour to parallel world next week as I will be covering the whole Crisis on Earth-X crossover event with reviews for all four episodes going up on Tuesday and Wednesday! I can’t wait!

Welcome back to Flash Facts, everyone! I’ve missed this and you guys and watching my favourite CW-verse Team but do you know what I haven’t missed?

Barry Allen as god saviour of all. I’ll be straight with you that I was not looking forward to the first few episodes of Season 4 because I knew that they would bring Barry back immediately because it’s not like we have another Flash on the show that’s been steadily developing or anything…

I will admit that bringing him back as an insane amnesiac (avec sick-ass beard) was a neat idea and I wish they’d at least kept him out of the suit for a few episodes if they were intent on bringing him back immediately after his sacrifice. The bizarre language Barry is writing in doesn’t conform with any written language established in DC Comics though it does bear a pacing resemblance to Interlac, the language of the 30th Century. His speech is a whole different beast as, amongst his ramblings, there seems to be a few snippets of dialogue from upcoming events. Again, if this manic state had continued, we could have used Barry as a bespoke early warning system while his mind readjusts to non-Speed Force reality.

Wally and Cisco get it bad this episode and that sucks! Despite clearly being active for 6 months inbetween seasons, we have to watch them act like bumble kings despite them being mostly capable in the previous season. I mean seriously, these guys get jobbed out by Peek-a-Boo and the super obscure Samuroid and THAT’S the impetus to bring Barry back? Boo-urns! You could have at least made it a gathering of The Rogues. I did dig that Wally just knows Japanese, nice little character tid-bit.

As bad as Wally and Cisco got it, Iris got it worse because she was damn good this episode. Candice Patton does a fantastic job playing Iris as a strong leader and voice of reason. Despite Barry’s loss, she seems to be the only one willing to live by his wishes and move forward, actively getting Wally and Cisco to train while acting as their “guy in the chair”. Having her continue her growth without Barry for a while would have been really interesting to see.

Caitlin has gone full Bruce Banner in the 6 months the Team haven’t seen her, now switching between Caitlin and Frost based on emotion. Interesting wrinkle, more interested in that dive bar she was working at and why the manager looks so distinctly unique. Questions for later in the season, probably!

In the final moments of the show, we find out who sent the Samuroid to literally welcome Barry home and it’s the Season Villain du jour, DeVoe aka the Thinkers – looking an awful lot like Metron of the New Gods in his floating chair and futuristic lair. I have to wonder at the design choice here because while Thinker is known for being one of the Flash’s smarter villains, he’s never really stolen Metron’s look before. Maybe it’ll be explained further in the season but for now, just a curious thing to note.

So that was The Flash Reborn, a bit of a tepid return to the series with a rather obvious plot line. It was disappointing but hey, it could have been worse! We could have had a 4th Speedster as the big bad! *shudder* Anyway, thanks for reading, let me know what you guys thought in the comments and we’ll be back next week to see if the show continues to send Mixed Signals.