Spoilers The Flash - Season 4

[Christopher]

Keep in mind that they went to this guy's house because their research turned up indications that he was the season's big bad, and then they found him in a wheelchair. If they were suspicious that he might be faking, that's not at all the same thing as picking some random disabled person on the street and suspecting them of being a villain because they're disabled.

But it's still dwelling on the wheelchair as the single overriding thing of significance about him, and that is prejudice. Substitute any other characteristic for the wheelchair -- the same gender, the same skin color, the same height -- and it's obvious how nonsensical it would be to think that way. So you're singling out "being in a wheelchair" as something intrinsically Other, something so abnormal that it overrides every other aspect of a human being in your attention. And that is ableism in a nutshell. Being preoccupied with the one thing that makes someone different from you, instead of just accepting it as one of the many attributes that make up a person, is what prejudice is.

 

[The Old Mixer]

No, the single overriding thing of significance about him would be that they suspect he's the season's big bad. Because of this, they might not take the appearance of the guy who came to the door at face value.

 

[ihno]

I'm sure it has been mentioned already, but 4x06 was very funny in regard of this thread about the last episode. "Do they have friends?" Now we know. Gibney doesn't have friends, Barry took them all away from him.

There were good aspects and bad ones in this episode. The idea of the "Wells council" was nice but the excution was only mildly funny. The german Lagerfeld-designerman-version with the 50s-glasses was the one I liked most though he sounded more like an austrian. He should live in Vienna. The other ones were a bit too much.

I hope that Dibney won't get annoying over time - the show is cheesy but with him it might become too much. Seeing Barry as a menton made the scenes interesting for me nonetheless.

I loved the T'Rex, which looked very good. Again, one reference to Jurassic Park would have sufficed.

And I'm becoming more and more a fan of Catlyn/Killer Frost, who didn't have too much to do. The end was a nice nod to the criticism that all the previous seasons had speedsters as the bad guys. "This season we have the chance to make it all differently!"

Enjoyable as always.

 

[Christopher]

The german Lagerfeld-designerman-version with the 50s-glasses was the one I liked most though he sounded more like an austrian. He should live in Vienna.

Did they actually say he was German? Anyway, maybe the German accent on Earth-12 sounds like our Austrian accent. Maybe the Austro-Hungarian Empire conquered Germany or something.

 

[ihno]

Did they actually say he was German? Anyway, maybe the German accent on Earth-12 sounds like our Austrian accent. Maybe the Austro-Hungarian Empire conquered Germany or something.

Ja. (Yes.) In 20:30 they all speak at the same time and I heard it there. It can mean the language of course, not the country. Something like "german" or "those germans" or something. The scene is better when I rewatch it now. They can be glad to have Cavanagh. The Vienna region dialekt has a very charming reputation if it comes to the melody.

And I could understand Cavanagh's german. When Damian Darkh speaks german I don't understand a single word (and I read that McDonough was so proud).

Btw, as for the one with the curly hair: they could have made a doctor who refernce (no. 8).

 

[Romulan_spy]

Clip from tonight's ep:

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Looks interesting.

 

[Sean_McCormick]

Did they actually say he was German? Anyway, maybe the German accent on Earth-12 sounds like our Austrian accent. Maybe the Austro-Hungarian Empire conquered Germany or something.

Well, not exactly like that. Until the mid 18-hundreds Austria was part of the states that comprised germany, the separation only ocured with the austro-prussian war, which paved the way to a german unification without Austria, which then formed the Austro-Hungarian Empire.

 

[Snaploud]

It was a bit weird how quick everybody was to tell Barry to stop investigating Davoe. Also, they seemed really judgmental about Barry going into Davoe's home. This is the same crew who locked up metas without due process or governmental oversight.

It's not like Barry was proposing to lock him up (ala the Dibny conversation). He just wanted to keep investigating.

 

[Christopher]

It was a bit weird how quick everybody was to tell Barry to stop investigating Davoe. Also, they seemed really judgmental about Barry going into Davoe's home. This is the same crew who locked up metas without due process or governmental oversight.

It's not like Barry was proposing to lock him up (ala the Dibny conversation). He just wanted to keep investigating.

Yeah, but he had nothing to go on but a feeling. In the other cases, they knew the people in question were actually bad guys. In this case, he seemed like a totally harmless person and Barry was fixating on him for no apparent reason. As far as they knew, they'd just gotten the wrong DeVoe and they should start looking at one of the other 1121 DeVoes in Central City (well, maybe not the baby).

Honestly, if we hadn't already been shown that Clifford and Marlize DeVoe actually were the bad guys, I would've thought that Barry was wrong to fixate on them too. His behavior seemed very much like the all-too-common tendency to mistake the first possibility you consider for the right answer, to close your mind to alternatives. Rational, honest thought requires the ability to say "I could be wrong." You can't fix your mistakes if you aren't willing to admit they exist. So even though Barry had the right guy, his methodology was all wrong. He could have been going after an innocent man. Honestly, he seemed out of character here, although I guess that's explained by his talk with Iris about being afraid because he has so much more to lose now.

Anyway, the flashbacks were quite interesting. I didn't expect the Thinker to turn out to be such a sympathetic villain. And it was nice to get a fresh look at the events of the accelerator explosion. It's interesting that Thawne-as-Wells recognized DeVoe's name and said he was a fan of his work -- presumably his future work as the Thinker, doing villainy. So maybe Thawne had an additional motive behind the explosion besides just creating the Flash.

 

[Dick Whitman]

I did not understand why Barry was sneaking around Devoe's house without his suit. which has a mask and also gloves! Only think I could figure is Barry did not want Devoe to know the Flash was looking into him. It still makes no sense. On the 1990 series the Flash did a lot of sneaking around in costume. I am glad this show is focusing on Barry being a cop again but there is a reason he has a secret identity too. Sometimes it's nessasary for him to do things outside his role as a police officer.

 

[tomalak301]

Best episode since that stretch in Season 1 where Berry travels back in time for the first time to the end. I remember when I first got into The Flash and I was binge watching the season because every episode added a layer from the last and I was genuinely excited about what was happening. Unfortunately, I haven't felt that way in Seasons 2 up to now, but tonight something just clicked.

The Thinker is already my favorite adversary the Flash has shown. I loved going back to when the Particle Accelerator exploded and we got to see how Clifford came to be and Marcilize being with him every step of the way. Heck, we even got Season 1 Harrison Wells back (I know it's not really Wells, but I still like him the best mainly because he was the first we saw). It's a shame next week is the Crossover which won't address the events of tonight at all because after this is the midseason finale and I really can't wait to see what happens next.

 

[E-DUB]

Where was Ralph tonight, anyway?

 

[tomalak301]

Where was Ralph tonight, anyway?

He was in the stretched scene. I'm actually glad Ralph wasn't in this episode. It was better without the comic relief.

 

[Snaploud]

Where was Ralph tonight, anyway?

It was a weird absence. They must not think very highly of Dibny's investigative skills.

 

[Christopher]

I did not understand why Barry was sneaking around Devoe's house without his suit. which has a mask and also gloves! Only think I could figure is Barry did not want Devoe to know the Flash was looking into him. It still makes no sense. On the 1990 series the Flash did a lot of sneaking around in costume. I am glad this show is focusing on Barry being a cop again but there is a reason he has a secret identity too. Sometimes it's nessasary for him to do things outside his role as a police officer.

Come to think of it, did we see Barry in costume at all this week? That would make two recent episodes in which he hasn't suited up even once. Maybe they're saving up their stunt/FX budget for the crossover.

It was a weird absence. They must not think very highly of Dibny's investigative skills.

I hesitate to count the "Stretched Scenes" (i.e. Microsoft commercials) as series canon, but Ralph did say he was working on an undercover case with Cisco. I guess he still has his own detective agency to run and isn't available to be a full-time superhero.

Of course, the real-world explanation is that he's just a recurring guest star signed for a finite number of episodes.


Speaking of recurring guests -- Kid Flash fought Starro and we missed it? Aww. Could we maybe get an animated webseries about it?

 

[FPAlpha]

The face off between Barry and DeVoe was awesome.. i loved how DeVoe just flat out stated that he knows Barry is The Flash and that Barry didn't even try to weasel or deflect out of it. He just accepted the fact that he found the villain and that they now know each other.

It was probably the best villain reveal/introduction of the show.. early enough, pretty subdued yet very menacing and leaving people wanting more. Now my only question is why DeVoe thinks of Barry as an enemy, why is he a villain at all?

He "modified" himself to help the world, to know everything.. he's not in it for the money, fame and he already has a wife. He doesn't appear to blame Barry for anything that happened in his life and so far there is no personal connection so i hope the writers have this planned out well why these two, who have seemingly the same goal, should become adversaries.

 

[Christopher]

It was probably the best villain reveal/introduction of the show.. early enough, pretty subdued yet very menacing and leaving people wanting more. Now my only question is why DeVoe thinks of Barry as an enemy, why is he a villain at all?

He "modified" himself to help the world, to know everything.. he's not in it for the money, fame and he already has a wife. He doesn't appear to blame Barry for anything that happened in his life and so far there is no personal connection so i hope the writers have this planned out well why these two, who have seemingly the same goal, should become adversaries.

Even before DeVoe's transformation, there was a strong sense of intellectual elitism in his point of view, a belief that people were getting stupider and the masses' minds were smaller and less capable than his. He and Marlize were talking about trying to "change the way people think" using technology, which implies some kind of mass mind control. One of those supervillain plans that's all "This is for the greater good of the world, but only I am brilliant enough to see it, and lesser minds won't understand and will try to stop me." It seemed benevolent because of the way the actors played it, but if you listened to the words, there were some disturbing ideas there.

 

[Dick Whitman]

Before the sexual harassment accusations against Andrew Kreisberg became public he said in interview he wanted the writing this season to feel so different that the audience would feel like he had been fired. I remember thinking I wish that would happen for real. Last season's writing was horrible and seemed to suggest they had limited ideas on what to do for a long run of a tv series.

I am glad they learned from their mistakes because there has been a remarkable improvement. The writing is far from perfect but this Devoe storyline has me excited to watch the show again. Obviously Kreisberg contributed to this new direction. But if he permanently leaves the show I am hopeful the other writers are able to continue this and maybe do even better without him. I completely believe his accusers. That could not have been a happy work environment. Even those not directly attacked probably felt it in other ways. When people are not comfortable at work it effects productivity.

 

[Christopher]

Before the sexual harassment accusations against Andrew Kreisberg became public he said in interview he wanted the writing this season to feel so different that the audience would feel like he had been fired. I remember thinking I wish that would happen for real. Last season's writing was horrible and seemed to suggest they had limited ideas on what to do for a long run of a tv series.

Well, the showrunners on The Flash last year were Todd and Aaron Helbing, who I think are still the showrunners this year. I think Kreisberg's role on the show was more supervisory. Although maybe he was more hands-on than I thought.

 

[Romulan_spy]

Now my only question is why DeVoe thinks of Barry as an enemy, why is he a villain at all? ... why these two, who have seemingly the same goal, should become adversaries.

We don't know that the two have the same goals at all actually. The Flash is all about helping people. Devoe is probably trying to prevent his own death but his plan might harm others. Also, Devoe alluded to some plan to make other people smart through his mind which sounds like mass mind control. Either way, if Devoe's plan would harm other people, then the Flash won't be ok with that. And it would easily explain why the Flash and The Thinker are enemies. So the bottom line is that the Thinker is the villain because his actions, however well intended, will most likely cause a great deal of harm to other people.