The FLASH TV SERIES

[Jim Kelly]

The way that Barry was put in prison was such a travesty that I didn't mind another travesty reversing the previous one. It seemed like . . . justice. And obviously, Barry needed to get out by legal means if he wanted his freedom. I still think there would be several questions about what happened at that crime scene--so the CCPD might not want him back. But it's probably not something they're ever going to address, because the writers must know that set-up was ridiculous.

Several things I liked:

• 4 different actors played the Elongated Man in this episode--both Paul McGillion and Richard Brooks got to show their range
• Seeing Neil Sandilands again--and Marlise reacting to seeing the form of her old husband
• Barry is so smart--this was the best depiction of Barry Allen that the show has ever done
• Several previously established villains returning and pulling a prison break
• Becky Sharpe's character development and relationship with Barry
• The gut wrenching emotions for the characters and us in seeing the Thinker destroy
• Kim Engelbrecht doing an amazing job as the Mechanic, with great writing
• Elongated Man's arc throughout the episode, which proves why he's so important to the team

[Frontier]

Speaking of the rogues, was happy to hear Barry mention several of them that were locked in the meta-wing but didn't get to appear. Peek-a-Boo, Top, Weather Wizard (don't remember if he mentioned Mirror Master but I believe he's in there too) . Would be awesome if they all teamed up for an escape of their own and we FINALLY got a Rogues episode.

Honestly, I've almost given up on us getting a Rogues episode after Legends got Captain Cold and Heat Wave.

It just doesn't seem like there are any plans for that anymore.

[Jim Kelly]

I think it's still in the realm of possiblity this season to have a Rogues team-up, where they band together to help the Flash against the Thinker. LEGENDS could even loan out Citizen Cold and Heat Wave--as a trade-off for Kid Flash. But it was never something high on my list of things to see. Most of the Rogues aren't like they are in the comic books--so even if they teamed up it wouldn't answer any fanboy wish fulfillment for me.

I wonder if the Enlightenment is when the Thinker takes over the minds of everyone on Earth. Was that the plot of a DOCTOR WHO episode or in the comic books? Then a cerebral inhibitor would come in handy--so Barry can escape the mind control. And it would be the Flash vs the World. Just in time for a time travelling daughter to provide some back-up.

Poor Harry missed all the fun. Which is ironic, because he was the one pushing Team Flash to save Barry in the previous episode. And now they did that without any help from him.

[Frontier]

I think it's still in the realm of possiblity this season to have a Rogues team-up, where they band together to help the Flash against the Thinker. LEGENDS could even loan out Citizen Cold and Heat Wave--as a trade-off for Kid Flash. But it was never something high on my list of things to see. Most of the Rogues aren't like they are in the comic books--so even if they teamed up it wouldn't answer any fanboy wish fulfillment for me.

It would still fulfill that wish for me .

[Jon Clark]

So a dead man turns up no longer dead and Barry is now totally cleared. And no one will bother to notice that said dead man has vanished back into the ether (unless Ralph is going to keep up appearances)? And Mrs. Thinker is going along with it?

And Barry just returned to his old cell with no one wondering how he got there? I mean even if the whole selling metas stuff means no one was aware of the other cells you'd assume the guards would at least notice that the headcount on Barry's cell block increased by one.

Even for the Arrowverse this seemed like a ton of handwaving this episode

[Osiris-Rex]

I'm amused that Barry wouldn't leave prison unless it was done legally, but seems to have no qualms about being released by having Team Flash commit a fraud on the court (which, I need hardly add, is highly illegal). Not much different from a breakout, if you ask me.

Barry wanted to leave the prison legally so he wouldn't be a fugitive on the run. Now Barry is out legally as far as the justice system is concerned. Devoe committed fraud on the court to get Barry locked up.
So turn about is fair play. I would think faking your death to get an innocent man locked up would also be illegal.

Gee, and it sounded to me like he wanted to take the moral high ground.

If Barry had actually killed Devoe then that would have been morally ambiguous.

[Jim Kelly]

I'd like to see Ralph be a real detective like in the comics. And now that he can shape-shift--for brief periods--take a page from the Batman handbook and maintain these identities of dead people for information gathering.

That's unlikely to happen.

But probably the truth of DeVoe will come out after the break, so DeVoe's death will be a moot point soon enough.

[RyDub]

So a dead man turns up no longer dead and Barry is now totally cleared. And no one will bother to notice that said dead man has vanished back into the ether (unless Ralph is going to keep up appearances)? And Mrs. Thinker is going along with it?

And Barry just returned to his old cell with no one wondering how he got there? I mean even if the whole selling metas stuff means no one was aware of the other cells you'd assume the guards would at least notice that the headcount on Barry's cell block increased by one.

Even for the Arrowverse this seemed like a ton of handwaving this episode

That I didn't like but then again it kind of made sense. After all he goes back to his meta cell and well they see is the one that broke out of his own cell. So even if he gets off with murder he could get charged with potentially trying to escape damage to prison property. I am thinking its the warden and only a select few know of the metas sale. It could even be he didn't let anyone even know Barry was in the meta wing. After all he flat out lied to Iris and Joes squeeze. Telling them barry was simply in isolation for a fight which he wasn't. That might have been the lie to tell the guards. So they may have assumed Harry was brought back between shifts so just counted him there.

[Frontier]

I'd like to see Ralph be a real detective like in the comics. And now that he can shape-shift--for brief periods--take a page from the Batman handbook and maintain these identities of dead people for information gathering.

That's unlikely to happen.

But probably the truth of DeVoe will come out after the break, so DeVoe's death will be a moot point soon enough.

I feel like the writers won't play up Ralph's detective skills because it'll make him feel less like Plastic Man.

That I didn't like but then again it kind of made sense. After all he goes back to his meta cell and well they see is the one that broke out of his own cell. So even if he gets off with murder he could get charged with potentially trying to escape damage to prison property. I am thinking its the warden and only a select few know of the metas sale. It could even be he didn't let anyone even know Barry was in the meta wing. After all he flat out lied to Iris and Joes squeeze. Telling them barry was simply in isolation for a fight which he wasn't. That might have been the lie to tell the guards. So they may have assumed Harry was brought back between shifts so just counted him there.

I think as far as the guards are aware the only person who actually escaped was Becky/Hazard.

Everyone else involved ended up dead or gone (Amunet).

[Osiris-Rex]

I think as far as the guards are aware the only person who actually escaped was Becky/Hazard.

Everyone else involved ended up dead or gone (Amunet).

I don't think the writers intended us to think that hard about the reactions from the guard about Barry being back in his cell. They just wanted to show us that given the opportunity to escape,
Barry took the high road and stayed in prison until he could be legally cleared. Often the writers need to take short cuts to move the story along, given they only have 42 minutes to work with,
and hope that 93.568% of the audience just enjoys the story and don't try to overthink it. If you overthink the details you are sort of missing the forest for the trees.

[Jon Clark]

I don't think the writers intended us to think that hard about the reactions from the guard about Barry being back in his cell. They just wanted to show us that given the opportunity to escape,
Barry took the high road and stayed in prison until he could be legally cleared. Often the writers need to take short cuts to move the story along, given they only have 42 minutes to work with,
and hope that 93.568% of the audience just enjoys the story and don't try to overthink it. If you overthink the details you are sort of missing the forest for the trees.

I'm not really thinking that hard. I watched both scenes and immediately spotted the plot holes.

I see Barry pop into his cell and immediately thought "Wouldn't that have been an empty cell a second ago?". Then the guards said everyone was accounted for and I thought "But Barry's cell should be empty so is someone else missing?"

And with Ralph/Devoe the judge even noted that this'd have to be looked into and I thought "Is ralph going to be doing this DeVoe thing longterm"?

[The Cool Thatguy]

Gee, and it sounded to me like he wanted to take the moral high ground.

Sandy Hausler

Yeah, same here.

If Barry was okay with worming his way out using powers, and not evidence, why didn't he just Flash-up and making up some BS about how a bad guy framed Barry in revenge for stopping him?

I mean, that way he could have put pressure on Thinker, cleared himself and not wasted all that time in jail.

[Ilan Preskovsky]

Like the rest of this mini-arc, this was an immensely stupid episode; at its dumbest everytime it goes to court. Also, I still think the Thinker is a super lame villain and each of his appearances only further cement this. The only reason he's a threat at all is that the heroes of the show have been written particularly stupidly this year.

And yet, I'm still enjoying this season overall and this episode was still somehow no exception. It's leaning pretty solidly into the silly and campy scif-fi Silver Age goofiness this season, which is a good thing, and it's generally still pretty solid when you take away the bigger, sequential plots and concentrate on each episode as its own thing. Objectively, this isn't very good at all but it's still pretty fun.

[Frontier]

Like the rest of this mini-arc, this was an immensely stupid episode; at its dumbest everytime it goes to court. Also, I still think the Thinker is a super lame villain and each of his appearances only further cement this. The only reason he's a threat at all is that the heroes of the show have been written particularly stupidly this year.

Honestly, at this point I think he's the toughest threat Team Flash has fought.

I mean, just look at all the powers he now has access too:

- An intellect beyond human comprehension (Thinker).

- The ability to read minds (Brainstorm).

- The ability to effect probability (Hazard).

- The ability to control technology (Kilg%re).

- The ability to control inanimate objects (Black Bison).

- The ability to shrink anything (Dwarfstar).

Even with just Hazard's power he's practically invincible, as Becky demonstrated in her debut episode and here when she saved Barry.

And there's still 6 Bus Metas he hasn't absorbed yet, counting Ralph and Fallout. Though I'm not sure what he gains by getting Fallout's abilities given the drawback they lead too, unless one of the Bus Metas' powers will offset the negative side-effects of asborbing Fallout.

[90'sCartoonMan]

Why was Iris wearing a bathrobe when she went to visit Barry in prison?

I'm almost sad Barry is out of prison because Prison Barry is smart, resourceful, and compassionate (whereas normal Barry is just the last one). I liked seeing him with the other metas, helping Becky out. I wanted to see their personalities and goals clash more, like the idea that Kilg%re only wanted to use his powers to play the stock market (he would've been incredibly rich that way and no one could touch him) and yet he still became murderous at the end.

Killing them was...okay, I'm reserving judgment on DeVoe's plan until we know what it is, but given his interactions with Marlize, it seems like he was just abandoning everything he set up, which makes the last few episodes very pointless.

I know Plastic Man (and his son) can shapeshift into other people, but could Ralph actually do that in the comics? Though at this point I'm half tempted to think we're dealing with another Ted Kord/Ray Palmer situation where the writers wanted to use Plastic Man and DC wouldn't let them, so they settled for their second choice. And Ralph deserves better then that.

I feel like they always planned to use Elongated Man since he's closely associated with the Flash without actually REALIZING what that would mean for Ralph Dibny and instead kept thinking up Plastic Man stories and ideas and then just went with them.

[*]Elongated Man's arc throughout the episode, which proves why he's so important to the team[/LIST]

I feel like we didn't need to see another "Ralph quits and needs a pep talk" plot so soon after the last one. At least then, Ralph was afraid of dying and that's why he didn't want to help. In this case, it was just him afraid of losing his friends.

So a dead man turns up no longer dead and Barry is now totally cleared. And no one will bother to notice that said dead man has vanished back into the ether (unless Ralph is going to keep up appearances)? And Mrs. Thinker is going along with it?

Yeah, I mean, there's no way that should've worked with Marlize right there. And it shouldn't continue to work unless Ralph pretends to be a married college professor, in which case, he'd be found out very quickly.