The Flash: Therefore I Am

November 22, 2017 4:20 AM - Season 4, Episode 7

Barry comes face to face with DeVoe; and Devoe's past is revealed through flashbacks.

AV Club - Barry falls back into bad old habits in a dull set-up episode of The Flash

Den of Geek - The Flash slows down for the best episode of the season, as the first secrets of DeVoe and the Thinker are revealed.

IGN - Clifford DeVoe is more dangerous than he looks.

EW recap

posted by oh yeah! (12 comments total)

I was surprised the team was so ready to accept Barry's admission that he confronted DeVoe at the end. I was expecting them to yell at him again, and then I was going to complain about how these heroes never just record their conversations with villains.

Anyway. I'm glad they all believe him readily and we don't have to drag that out for another week.

I'm not sure if this was a good episode, though. The backstory for DeVoe didn't really reveal much about his character other than he wants to be really smart to enlightened humanity. All that could've taken 5 minutes.
posted by numaner at 12:32 PM on November 22, 2017

I spent a good chunk of the episode wondering if Barry was being mind-controlled or something--I mean, I know that the show has proven many a time that he is Not Smart, but he was off-the-charts stupid this time. Like, why on earth would a speedster with a masked super-suit go breaking & entering in street clothes and slow enough to get caught on camera? Why would your reaction to finding a recording device in your high-tech headquarters to take it to pieces without letting your higher-tech cohorts examine it, and maybe leave it running to plant false information. I see from the recaps this was all meant to convey what a master manipulator DeVoe is, or how rattled Barry is by this latest nemesis, but, I just could not get past how incredibly stupid Barry was being.
posted by oh yeah! at 2:40 PM on November 22, 2017 [4 favorites]

oh yeah that too! there were some serious fails in this episode
posted by numaner at 3:40 PM on November 22, 2017

I spend the episode yelling "Come on, Barry, WTF!"
posted by plastic_animals at 5:53 PM on November 22, 2017

And why did a University end classes with bells like a high school?
posted by Servo5678 at 6:39 PM on November 22, 2017 [2 favorites]

Hah, yes, they did point out Barry's history with wheelchairs, and then Cisco pointed to Wells and Wells muttered "not me."
posted by jenfullmoon at 11:04 PM on November 22, 2017

The moral of the story is that people in wheelchairs are evil and can't be trusted.
posted by FallowKing at 11:39 PM on November 22, 2017

Hey, just because you're in a wheelchair doesn't mean you can't perpetrate evil! Wheels are not proof of innocence in the Berlantiverse!
posted by jenfullmoon at 9:39 AM on November 23, 2017 [2 favorites]

yes, people in wheelchairs should be treated equally like everyone else. evil until proven good.
posted by numaner at 11:58 AM on November 23, 2017 [1 favorite]

So does that mean Starro attacked Blue Valley (Vale?) in addition to Charm City? Who gave Wally help to defeat it? (Because as far as I know, battling Starro has always taken a team effort.)

As for the episode, the whole thing was stupid. Everything that oh yeah! pointed out in the second post is identical to my beefs with this week's show.

I guess they're going to put the Thinker plot on hold for a week to deal with the Earth X crossover. That's a shame. I would have rather had this arc wrap up now and then have a new one started with a new villain after the crossover. I know that's not the way this show operates, but I'm already bored with this story line.
posted by sardonyx at 5:02 PM on November 23, 2017 [1 favorite]

Also, I can't be the only one who saw DeVoe standing out in the rain wearing that ridiculous metal cap while the lightening flashed and kept saying to myself "I wonder if 1.21 Gigawatts is enough power." Right?
posted by sardonyx at 6:17 PM on November 23, 2017 [5 favorites]

I'm running a bit behind, but after a couple of episodes of Too Much Dibny, he is entirely absent from an episode where he would actually be relevant. Dibny "knows" someone is guilty, so he goes outside the law to work towards convicting them (and is subsequently fired due to Barry calling him out). Now Barry is the one who "just knows" that DeVoe is hiding something and goes outside the law (breaking and entering, etc.) to try and prove it. I don't think we needed any Dibny asinine remarks in this episode, but I think it was a lost opportunity for some good Barry/Dibny dialog.

I guess they're going to put the Thinker plot on hold for a week to deal with the Earth X crossover. That's a shame. I would have rather had this arc wrap up now and then have a new one started with a new villain after the crossover. I know that's not the way this show operates, but I'm already bored with this story line.

The other problem with not wrapping this up is that whatever super-precise plan DeVoe has going (which includes allowing for the wedding) can't possibly read "Subsection 1234-z: Then a dimension of Nazi Superbeing Doppelgängers show up."
posted by mikepop at 7:51 AM on November 30, 2017 [1 favorite]