Catching Up: The Flash Episode 422, "Think Fast"

The penultimate episode of the fourth season finds Flash (GRANT GUSTIN) and his teammates in a last-ditch effort against the clock to stop Clifford DeVoe, aka The Thinker (NEIL SANDILANDS) from launching his satellites, which would work in conjunction to flood the world with dark matter and erase human intelligence. It's a tension-filled adventure juxtaposed against the silliness of Iris (CANDICE PATTON) having to babysit a near-idiot level Harrison Wells (TOM CAVANAGH), while Joe West (JESSE L MARTIN) copes with the newest development in the last week of DA Cecile Horton's (DANIELLE NICOLET) pregnancy as her mind-reading powers stretch to become mind-inhabiting powers.

I will say that, while we haven't seen yet how Cecile's powers will play into this season's plot, this new development really gave Nicolet a chance to put on quite a show with her acting, as she acts out the roles of stoned-out pizza delivery surfer, perfectionist Caitlin, and suspicious Joe West. You can almost be certain that these powers will have a use against The Thinker in next week's final battle.

The dilemma facing Team Flash is an A.R.G.U.S. facility (allowing for a special appearance by ARROW's John Diggle, played by DAVID RAMSEY) currently infiltrated and summarily occupied by DeVoe. He's there for his final meta, Neil Borman (RYAN ALEXANDER MCDONALD) -- not to steal his powers, but to get him to go critical mass and supercharge his cell, which he would then shrink and use as a power source for his satellites. He also takes advantage of A.R.G.U.S.'s defenses and couples them with a half-dozen hostages to ensure the Flash can't save them and stop him at the same time. Which is why Team Flash decides Barry isn't going to go it alone -- he's going to take Cisco (CARLOS VALDES) and Caitlin (DANIELLE PANABAKER) with him, and extending "Flash Time" to them so they can all work fast enough to save people and follow DeVoe. They have less than a second.

But when the training scenarios go sour, Barry regrets the idea, and decides he will go it alone, creating conflict with the team, who all believe they bear responsibility for the bus metas and DeVoe's rise to power. So you can bet when it's time for the rescue, they'll all go together, the hostages will be saved, and Barry will finally be fast enough to follow DeVoe through his dimensional transport.

And DeVoe will still have a backup plan.

His Backup Plans Have Backup Plans. NEIL SANDILANDS as Clifford DeVoe, aka The Thinker.

An interesting development this episode stems from what has become the season's too-long-running joke -- the therapy sessions with Dr. Sharon Finkel (DONNA PESCOW). This time it's Caitlin's time on the couch, as she tries to cagily talk about bringing her 'friend' back without admitting she's a super-hero. I'd love to think that Dr. Finkel has figured all this out by now, given how frequently these friends all run out on her sessions. Regardless, we learn that Caitlin has been repressing a memory, and later we find out what it is -- that Killer Frost has been with her since childhood, long before the particle accelerator explosion. This opens the door to there being other metas -- which, of course, we already knew here were from watching LEGENDS OF TOMORROW meet up with the Justice Society in the 40s.

Oh, and Iris and Harry find Marlize (KIM ENGELBRECHT) and attempt to bring her into the fight against her husband.

Come back next week for the season finale, when all these loose plot threads are tighted up as a knot that will trip up The Thinker. Right?