'The Flash': Has The Thinker Defeated His Own Purpose?

This season of The Flash has been billed as the fastest man alive versus the fastest mind alive and it's seemed like that's the case. The Thinker has consistently been multiple steps ahead of The Flash as he works towards his goal of "enlightening" the world.

However, The Thinker has changed quite a bit over the course of this season as well. As The Thinker changes bodies, his personality has changed a bit as well. The original Clifford DeVoe may have been a calculating villain, but he was also shown to be a caring and devoted husband even as his body declined. Then, When DeVoe solves that problem by taking over the body of Dominic Lanse/Brainstorm (Kendrick Sampson) he seems a little more calculating and cold. When DeVoe later takes over the body of Becky Sharpe/Hazard (Sugar Lyn Beard) he goes from cold to even a little sinister, drugging his wife to keep her affection. And each body switch comes with new powers, with DeVoe taking the powers of both Brainstorm and Hazard when he took their bodies as well as the powers of the other bus metas DeVoe has absorbed.

Now, rather than DeVoe simply out-thinking The Flash, he's increasingly relying on powers. It begs the question: has The Thinker defeated his own purpose? Remember, one of the things that DeVoe bemoaned was the intellectual decline of society and was genuinely bothered that people were distracted by other things. By continuing to gain and rely on metahuman powers, DeVoe is doing the same thing that he hates -- letting something else step in for his intellectual powers. Now, instead of out thinking The Flash, he simply is trying to out power him to get to whatever his endgame is.

It's also worth considering that, as he continues to body swap, he's growing more and more predictable. As we saw in "Subject 9," Team Flash was able to figure out DeVoe's next move almost before DeVoe himself. While Team Flash couldn't stop DeVoe, briefly being on the same page as The Thinker is a massive victory and DeVoe's wife Marlize/The Mechanic even pointed that out.

Even if The Thinker has deviated from his original purpose and even if he is becoming more predictable, the villain still poses a major threat, one that Team Flash continues to look for ways to stop.

The Flash airs Tuesday at 8/7c on The CW.