It’s a well-known fact that ‘The Flash’ is one of the premier TV shows in the superhero genre cutting across networks. It is always among the CW’s marquee shows with awesome TRP statistics and audience engagement. But truth be told, the quality of the show is rapidly declining with each successive season but season 4 is a mixed bag and has the potential to reach the level of the debut season.
The Flash Season 4 has been quite a mix of big twists and turns too huge for us to handle. For the first time, Barry has come across a big bad who is not a speedster like him. But he has a brain that will outsmart anyone in this entire Universe.
The Thinker is not the fastest man alive but he is definitely the smartest man alive who is testing the mental limits of Barry Allen aka The Flash as he is always 10 steps ahead of Barry and has been able to outsmart him on every turn of this show.
Clifford DeVoe, a university professor got caught in particle accelerator explosion done by Star Labs and became super intelligent meta-human who wants to fix everything wrong with the humanity. He is not alone in this mindless pursuit as he fell in love with a fellow female colleague at the university who is with him on his personal mission.
She is also known as “The Mechanic”, a popular DC villain that has been adapted to a small screen. She is like the right-hand person of “The Thinker”. Her character has been described as “the truest of true believers who’ll stop at nothing to help him implement his plan to fix humanity”. In fact, it was due to her brilliant performance in the court that sealed the fate of Barry Allen and he got sentenced to life in prison without parole.
In Season 2, Zoom’s attempt at breaking the Flash was devastating for the Scarlet Speedster. Savitar’s big reveal may be disappointing but the fights between the two Barry’s were unquestionably awesome. Season 1, Season 2, and to some extent even Season 3 was unmatched in terms of depth and engaging the audience. And then there’s The Flash Season 4. We now have a villain that we have never seen before and Barry has not faced anyone like this until now.
The producer of the show, Todd Helbing recently talked about how big of an impact this non-speedster big bad has had and what it means for the show overall. Here’s what he said:
“The Thinker literally is the smartest guy on the planet, so there’s a lot of chess pieces that he’s moving around simultaneously. As Team Flash is figuring out who he is and what they think the plan is, there’s a lot of fun as we show the audience information and then have our team catch up to that information or surpass it. It’s a big mystery.”
“There are certainly speedsters in the cannon of Flash that we want to explore and we want on the show and everybody… Like Reverse Flash to me personally is one of my favorite villains, one of my favorite speedsters, so I’d love that guy to pop up now and then, you know what I mean? But I think it was refreshing, and it’s just been a lot of fun this year not having to constantly come up with new ideas of how a speedster could pose a threat to Barry. So, it’s fun, and it’s new, and it’s a new challenge, but I think having speedsters in the mythology of the show is never going to change.
I think having Zoom and then followed up by Savitar, you know, I can understand that feeling. It’s because trying to reinvent, you know, like a new power for an evil speedster or what they can do … Like we can’t have it just who’s faster for the entirety of a series.”
The Thinker has now brought Barry on an insane twist as in the previous episode, Barry managed to free himself from the prison and clear his name as he was framed for the murder of Clifford Devoe. But as he managed to get out, The Thinker actually created many new hurdles for him as he has now found a new Meta-human host to hold on to. Now, he found himself the body of a woman, Becky aka Hazard and has the powers of 6 Meta-Humans combined which are – having the smartest brain of the planet, the power to control new tech machines, shrink things down, telepathic ability, control statues, and most importantly, turn people’s luck into bad luck.
Now, the synopsis of the 15th episode has been revealed for the show which is titled, “Enter Flashtime”, and this new synopsis displays two major Speedsters returning to the show. Here’s the synopsis for “Enter Flashtime”:
“JESSE QUICK AND JAY GARRICK TEAM UP WITH THE FLASH — When a nuclear bomb detonates in downtown Central City, Barry (Grant Gustin), Jesse Quick (guest star Violett Beane) and Jay Garrick (guest star John Wesley Shipp) slow down time by entering Flashtime. As everyone in the city is frozen, the three speedsters push themselves to the breaking point to save the city and everyone in it. Gregory Smith directed the episode written by Todd Helbing & Sterling Gates.”
The Flash has been without a sidekick speedster for a while now, as Wally West left team Flash and has now joined the Legends of Tomorrow, as that team now has a speedster of its own, named Kid Flash! Now, in episode 15, we will get to see Jesse Quick and Jay Garrick team up with the Flash yet again.
In DC comics, Jesse Quick is an alter-ego of Jesse Chambers, an amazing woman with super-speed powers. She is the daughter of Golden age classic superheroes – Johnny Quick and Liberty Belle. It was only logical for her to become a superhero as it was in the family’s DNA, hence she is part of a multi-generational superhero family.
She is not a natural speedster like Reverse Flash, Zoom or Barry Allen, instead, she derives her super-speed powers through a brilliant scientific formula. She is endowed with all of her mother’s qualities like sonic vibrations, marvelous hand to hand combat abilities and she also has the gift to fly. On the TV series, she became a speedster after she got exposed to radiation during particle accelerator explosion that Prof. Wells attempted to recreate the conditions similar to when it actually happened.
Jay Garrick was the predecessor of Barry Allen in this super speed business but on the TV show, he is the doppelganger of Barry Allen’s father Henry Allen on Earth-3. He came onto the show immediately after Barry’s real father was stabbed in front of him by Zoom.
We last saw Jesse Quick in episode 3 of this season, and Jay Garrick has not yet appeared on this season and we last saw him in the finale of Season 3.
It will be a cool welcome back to both these fan-favorite Speedsters, and hopefully ‘The Flash’ will be great again. The details regarding why are they coming back are shrouded in mystery but given that somebody is trying to set off a nuclear bomb in the Central city suggests that it is a deadly villain who is hell-bent on causing as much damage as possible and inflicting terrible pain and suffering onto the people.
It is also possible that this is the work of more than one superhero and in a situation like this, the speedsters can be pretty handy in evacuating a maximum number of people to safe zones and saving countless lives. Well, Barry will surely feel good after seeing his speedster friends from different Earths coming to rescue residents of the Central City of Earth-I. But I am sure that Team Flash will finally track him down and thwart his evil plans as always but what if Thinker shows up and transfer the consciousness of whoever this guy is…Oh my god…This is really getting crazier. Hopefully, there will be a huge payback.
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