Spoilers for this week’s episodes of Flash and Legends! Cut for length. It’s long, but I’d like to think it’s worth the read.
Two very good episodes this week. The Flash episode takes place in the present day, but has quite a few flashbacks from the DeVoes' life four years ago. The Thinker (Clifford) and the Mechanic (Marlyse, though I'm not quite sure how to spell it) are husband and wife, and in the past they were very much in love. Clifford was and is a history professor, but four years ago he was frustrated that people didn't listen to him and didn't think he was intelligent enough to make them listen and ultimately educate them. He had a plan to build a thinking cap to increase his intelligence, and Marlyse built it for him -- she's the techanical genius, with doctorates in mechanical engineering and robotics. Clifford then hoped to power it with Wellsobard's particle accelerator, and the DeVoes attended the press conference seen in the pilot episode. There, Marlyse asked Wellsobard a question, and his smug response indicated that he knew who Clifford was and knew what was going to happen; he said he was a big fan of Clifford and wished him luck.
Marlyse immediately realized that Wellsobard knew there would be an explosion and wanted it, and she thought that they shouldn't go ahead with the plan, but of course Clifford wanted it too and was determined to carry it out. So he put on the thinking cap when the dark matter started going haywire, and was struck and nearly killed. When Marlyse asked how he felt, he replied "Enlightened". From that point on, he was hyper-intelligent and knew just about everything, but then he suffered a seizure and learned he had a degenerative disease similar to ALS as a result of the accident. His new intelligence was feeding off his body, and would kill him within a couple of years. This really upset him and he wished he'd never gone through with the experiment, but Marlyse built a special chair for him which prolonged his life (the one we've seen him in earlier this season), and that takes us to where we are today.
In the present, Barry and Joe go to interview him and Barry is convinced the innocent-seeming Clifford is the one he's looking for even though everyone else on the team disagrees. In fact, Barry investigates him to a very creepy and illegal extent, such as breaking into their home, leading the DeVoes to complain to Detective Singh and getting Barry suspended. It's pretty clear that Clifford was manipulating him into doing it and trying to separate him from his allies, because the rest of Team Flash was legitimately getting freaked out about his actions and he could have lost his job.
After some harassment, Barry decides to break the restraining order the DeVoes have on him to confront Clifford at his lecture hall. Clifford says he knows Barry is the Flash, and unsurprisingly knows a lot about him (for one thing, he's had a camera in the Samuroid which has been in STAR Labs all this time, and Cisco really should have been smart enough to sweep for surveillance devices). He admits to being the mastermind that Barry has sought, and says he has nothing to fear from the Flash because "you can't out-think me". He brags that Barry's speed is nothing compared to the power of limitless thought, and that he has the fastest mind. Basically he's cocky as hell and doesn't give a damn.
So Barry goes back to Team Flash and tells them about his little meeting, and they accept that he was right. Cisco dubs DeVoe "the Thinker", and Wally makes an unexpected return. He fought Starro while he was away!
At the very end of the episode, Clifford and Marlyse talk as they go to their underground lab, and Clifford says he approves of Cisco's nickname. He gets tremors when he's unplugged for too long, so Marlyse hurries him into his special chair and they watch Barry and Iris on a spycam. He says he'll let them get married, as he thinks that love is important.
The relationship between Clifford and Marlyse is really sad; they both loved each other dearly before the accident and she clearly loves him still, but he's been very distant from her since then. He may still care about her, as suggested by his comment about love, but he's not the same person he once was. The accident may have done something to his brain, or perhaps he's become separated from his humanity since his intelligence was boosted. Or both. My spouse and I disagreed about his motives pre-accident; I thought he was arrogant but generally well-meaning, and my spouse argued that he was malevolent from the start. So I don't know, I'll have to watch those scenes again later.
It was cool to see the old-school thinking cap in all its dweeby glory and have it play a significant role in Clifford's backstory, and I really like that Marlyse is a skilled genius in her own right. She seems to downplay her intelligence in favour of Clifford's, though, which is sad but not uncommon. I wouldn't like to see her turn against him because that'd probably be really heartbreaking for her -- since she loves him so much -- but it'd be nice to see her accept her own genius and believe in it.
Anyway, it was a really interesting episode and I'm glad we got such an in-depth look at the DeVoes' earlier lives. The villains in this show rarely get that, so it was good to see and helped to make clear why Clifford is and will be dangerous.
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The Legends episode is heavy on both Mick and Grodd, and gives us a lot of insight into Mick's character. He also gets some significant personal growth too.
In 1967 Vietnam, at the height of the war, some US soldiers are attacked by a mysterious force which we later learn is Grodd. Yep, Grodd has become an Anachronism, so the Legends have to go solve the problem even though Sara's still in a coma. They split up, with Mick and Nate going off together while Zari, Amaya, and Ray question the only soldier who'd escaped. Mick is far crankier than usual and complaining about everything, and eventually tells Nate that his dad served in Nam and he doesn't want to encounter him. So of course they're promptly caught by his dad and his squad. His dad carries a flamethrower too and bears more than a slight resemblance to his son's personality and mannerisms, and Mick refuses to surrender to him. Turns out his dad is named Dick Rory, and the two of them have a staredown but Dick ultimately accepts their presence. He believes they're with the CIA. But when Nate wants to know what the hell is going on with Mick, Mick says he never saw a shrink because he never regretted burning his dad to death, and is really angry about the subject of him. He's quite unimpressed with Nate's attempts at tough love to get him to talk.
Dick sees Mick's burns and comments "Bad burns, son", to which Mick retorts that he isn't his son. Mick tells Nate that all his dad did after the war was sit in his chair and drink, so you can see the source of his anger towards his father. But when they're attacked by US soldiers who were mind-controlled/influenced by Grodd, Dick saves Mick's life by pushing him out of the way, and the two use their flamethrowers together to chase off the enemy.
Mick stares at some fire -- something we know he does when he's struggling with his thoughts or dealing with uncomfortable feelings -- and acknowledges to Dick that he saved his life. It turns out that keeping his men safe is very important to Dick and he keeps a list of those who've died under his leadership. He's obviously traumatized by the war, though he indicates that he plans to marry a woman (presumably Mick's mom) after the war and maybe have kids someday.
Later, Nate finds Mick self-injuring by burning his arm. He tells Nate that he'd always seen his dad as a monster and blamed him for all the sick things he (Mick) did, but now he sees that he's worse than his father. He says he should have burned to death in the house instead of his dad. So he's obviously really fucked up emotionally at this point, having now understood that his dad had been traumatized by the war.
Ray later floats the idea that all the Legends' 'chance' meetings with their ancestors or their younger selves due to Anachronisms may not be coincidental, which is honestly one of the more interesting concepts the show has used. All of these meetings had seemed rather coincidental, so it's good to know that the series may be going somewhere with it and that one of the characters themselves realized it. Not all of these meetings have led to great revelations or character development, but some have, and perhaps time itself is trying to help them deal with personal issues or at least make them realize a few things about themselves. Or perhaps an individual is guiding them for some reason. Maybe Mallus, who may want them to get off his back and not fight him like Rip has been wanting them to. They won't be able to do that if they get erased or significantly changed by the Anachronisms.
The story with Grodd is that he's been controlling people and keeping them from fighting the war. He still plans to rule over everyone though, because he's obviously pissed off with humans in general. Eventually, he tries to stoke World War III and kill LBJ, although the various Legends manage to foil those plans and keep him from getting the Waverider to take over the planet. Amaya had briefly managed to get through to him, although that later gets ruined.
Dick learns of the enemy encampment (which is actually Grodd's camp) and plans to attack it even though Nate tells him not to because the other Legends are there. Mick says he's with Dick. The two of them attack the camp and Mick saves his father's life, and they take most of the people there prisoner -- including some of the other Legends. Dick is about to execute the captives but Mick turns his heat gun on him to save the others. When Nate reminds him that'll be erased if he kills his father before he's born, he says he doesn't care and has nothing to lose. But he tells Dick that he *does* have something to lose, and that if he kills those people he'll hear their screams forever. Once he's talked Dick down, he punches him, saying that he's always wanted to.
Later, Dick tells Mick that he appreciates what he did, and thanks him for keeping him from crossing that line. Mick notes that he's been pulled back from that line himself, and they part ways; Mick starts to talk to him about his future kids, but decides not to and just leaves. He then shakes Nate's hand and indicates that he appreciates the earlier tough love, and says he doesn't need the lighter anymore. He lets Nate keep it.
At the end, Sara wakes from her coma and the two halves of Firestorm are preparing for their inevitable separation. Plus, Grodd is saved by Damien Dahrk and given access to a different time travel device, so uh-oh.
So this episode told us a lot about Mick and his family dynamics, and it was good to see him learn from it and make peace with it. He gave up his lighter and possibly his self-injuring behaviour, and hopefully he can continue that. He learned a lot about his father and why the guy wasn't much of a dad, and while he has to live with the fact that he killed a traumatized veteran who could be a decent man, he will hopefully be able to deal with it. It's possible that in the future he'll find he can't really cope and will start self-injuring again, but that's something we can't really predict right now. However, he seems to have mostly forgiven his father and may one day begin to forgive himself.
Good episode, and it gave us a lot of food for thought: about Mick's history and issues, and about the idea that there's a guiding hand at work. I enjoyed it.
