The Flash Review: Think Fast (Season 4 Episode 22)

The Enlightenment begins on The Flash Season 4 Episode 22, “Think Fast,” as DeVoe once again outsmarts Barry and friends with what appears to be comparative ease.

The beginning of “Think Fast” is fairly epic in scope. In fact, it goes so big, so quickly, that there’s almost nowhere left for the episode to go but down, as it struggles to fill the minutes between the episode’s shocking opening and closing sequences.

As a result, this episode features a lot of filler. This problem has plagued several recent episodes of late (“Harry and the Harrisons” (Season 4, Episode 21), “Fury Rogue” (Season 4 Episode 19), as though the show is treading water until it can get to the exciting stuff at the end.

Nevertheless, “Think Fast’s” opening scene is something almost wondrous to watch.

DeVoe breaks into an ARGUS black site and chillingly orchestrates the deaths of a dozen agents using every meta power in his arsenal. (Beethoven’s Ninth blares in the background all the while, like he’s the Big Bad in a Die Hard movie.)

It’s beautifully put together and The Thinker, as villain, is utterly terrifying.

Remember when we all thought at the beginning of the season that DeVoe might be a more relatable sort of villain just because he wasn’t a speedster? How naïve we apparently all were.

Unfortunately, “Think Fast” is another hour in which we have to watch Team Flash fail over and over again. Their great plan to stop DeVoe doesn’t work (again), he defeats them all handily (again) and gets what he wants (again), with little effort.

A general The Flash Season 4 note: It would have been really nice to see the good guys manage to be successful at something for even a little bit at any point. Just saying.

Watching Barry and friends get defeated so regularly is incredibly disheartening on the superhero show that was always supposed to be about joy.

On the plus side, the planning for this round of Team Flash Failure Theater is probably the best of the season. To try and stop DeVoe and save the ARGUS soldiers he’s holding as hostages, Barry must teach Cisco and Caitlin the ways of the Speed Force and Flashtime.

This doesn’t entirely make sense, of course. (How is Caitlin managing to tolerate Flashtime when she doesn’t have her powers?) But the ultimate result is so good that it’s pretty easy to over look that fact.

When was the last time we got a storyline — or even just an extended scene — that required Barry, Cisco and Caitlin to work together like this?

Their training sequences together are fantastic, reminding us how strong and necessary to this show’s success this trio’s friendship is. We need more of this going forward.

Plus, let’s be real, Cisco’s rant at Barry is probably something every viewer has wanted to say to him this season. It feels cathartic in a way that little else in Season 4 has lately.

Except that none of this ends up mattering. Not really.

Yes, Original Team Flash gets it together enough to brave Flashtime and execute their plan. But the Thinker stays a step ahead of them, quoting Nietzsche at an overly cocky Barry and breaching back to STAR Labs to steal one of the gang’s own satellites to replace the one Amunet’s McGuffin ball destroyed.

Anyone else feel like we’ve seen this before? Oh wait, we kind of have.

Yet, now that the Enlightenment is officially under way, it doesn’t even feel that threatening.

Because The Flash has been telegraphing how this all will end for weeks. Which is maybe why “Think Fast” and the couple episodes preceding it seem so underwhelming. They’re fun, but they also feel as though they’re moving to a predetermined endpoint.

We get it. DeVoe is a big scary genius. He’ll be brought down via feelings rather than facts.

Can we just get on with it, maybe?

By dragging out the set-up of DeVoe’s endgame for so long, the story’s final moments now must all be crammed into a single episode. Obviously, it’s Marlize who holds the key to unraveling DeVoe’s plan, probably by reminding him how emotion is just as important as intellect.

Just as obviously, she’ll doubtless attempt to save the man inside the monster, because at the end of the day, she still loves him.

(Or maybe we’ll get lucky and she’ll just get to stab him with something. That’s what I’m hoping for at least. She’s earned it.)

The Flash is certainly capable of pulling off what I expect will be an extremely “love conquers all”-style solution with care. The show is also generally fantastic at crafting finales that feel satisfying and tie up loose ends.

Here’s hoping The Flash can do it here, and make this dawdling end to the season feel worth it.

Stray Thoughts and Observations

• I don’t think this season needed 23 episodes, y’all.
• I officially give up on trying to understand DeVoe’s motivations. Way back in “Therefore I Am” (Season 4 Episode 7), the flashbacks indicated that he originally wanted to build his Thinking Cap to make himself smarter to help others, especially his students. Now he wants to destroy all emotions and love? That escalated real quickly, y’all.
• Probably Team Flash should just put Dr. Finkel on retainer.
• Iris is the perfect foil to IQ-diminished Harry. I still don’t like that The Flash seems to want to play his deterioration for laughs, but Candice Patton’s quiet exasperation is certainly the kindest take on this particular trend.
• Every time I think that at least there’s no possible way that The Flash could make Caitlin and Killer Frost’s story more confusing or weird, they prove me wrong. Here’s hoping that by treating her personal issues seriously, the show is finally going to give her a real story about this.
• That said, making Killer Frost into a secondary personality who somehow existed before the particle accelerator explosion is just so messy and nonsensical. And it undercuts Caitlin’s journey to date in really frustrating ways.

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