First Thoughts on 'The Flash' Season 4 (Episode 9)

So far, I've found the fourth season of The Flash to be quite mediocre, mixing in some poorly-realised supporting characters (Ralph, Amunet) and awkward humour with some inventive and entertaining stories. The whole season's felt a little clunky, with the structural familiarity wearing a bit thin at this point. What's wrong with Season 4 is ultimately that it just isn't very good, it's trying to replicate what people like about The Flash, but without the quality storytelling present in Season 1 and most of 2. The arc this season revolving around DeVoe has felt quite familiar, despite his inventive power-set proving to be an interesting foil to Barry.

Thus, the mid-season finale 'Don't Run' demonstrates some of the good and bad of this season into an admittedly strong episode, if not a perfect one. For example, Ralph Dibny is still an irritating character, but the writers are taking efforts to make him more likable and give him some humility, admitting his fault to Caitlin and Cisco. Whilst he's still not likable, its becoming more likely that, if his arc is fulfilled properly, he'll become a less irritating character by the end of this season; perhaps not one I necessarily like, but one I can maybe tolerate in the show.

Amunet also returns in this episode to give Caitlin a motivational speech, which seems to be the strangest reason to include a villain ever - and gave me flashbacks to Ra's al Ghul's romance advice in Arrow season 3. Whilst I can understand why she's in the episode, I don't like the character at all, so found her scenes to be the weakest aspect, despite being much more tolerable than in her first appearance earlier this season (in an episode that I just couldn't get on with at all). Caitlin being under pressure to use her human skills as opposed to her meta-human skills made for a nice B-plot to the episode, even if the whole Killer Frost alter ego makes no sense. And yes, I'm still not over that: there is no reason why Killer Frost is Caitlin's split personality. It makes no sense, even in a show with a giant shark man. That being said, it's something I think most people have just accepted by this point.

It was the storyline surrounding DeVoe that really made this episode interesting though. Despite his ridiculous debut flying around in his incredibly over-large and cumbersome-looking chair, the Thinker's whole plan to switch bodies was actually very well-realised, especially in how it tied to Caitlin's story with Brainstorm (as Cisco nick-named him). Having DeVoe only be able to put his mind into the body of a telepathic meta-human was a good idea, and gave this sci-fi concept rules (unlike, for example, the split personality Killer Frost business). The reveal of DeVoe's new body was brilliantly played the actor, although his performance for the rest of the episode as DeVoe lacked the gravitas I think it needed. Also, the flashback sequence felt a bit pointless, and seemed like it should've been the prologue to the mid-season opener.

The real kick though came in the form of the episode's cliffhanger: DeVoe has a new body to enact his sinister schemes, and he's left his old body stabbed in Barry's apartment. How will Barry defend himself from the CCPD? We'll have to wait and see...