The Flash‘s fourth season is gradually drawing to a close — and we just got a major revelation about the Big Bad.
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Spoilers for tonight’s episode of The Flash, “Null and Annoyed”, below!
While most of the episode followed Team Flash tracking down Null, it also provided a sort of update on Marlize (Kim Engelbrecht) and Clifford DeVoe. In the beginning of the episode, Marlize woke up from a nap, with DeVoe revealing that he only had about a week of health left in the body of Izzy (Miranda McDougall).
Marlize suggested that she work to outfit DeVoe’s Thinking Chair, and inexplicably found partially made blueprints for that exact task. DeVoe walked away, mentioning that they needed to track down the two remaining Bus Metas. But Marlize interjected, pointing out that The Weeper hadn’t been caught yet either.
Later in the episode, Marlize accidentally spilled her cup of tea, realizing there was a weird substance inside. She tested it, and discovered that it was actually Weeper’s tears, which had been essentially numbing her mind. In a panic, Marlize recorded a video message to her future self, reminding her to escape DeVoe before it was too late. She went to save the file under a fake name — only to find an earlier video of the same kind.
Suddenly, DeVoe creeped up behind Marlize, and revealed that they had endured several evolutions of this cycle in the past. As DeVoe explained, he had been using Weeper’s tears and Dominic Lanse’s mental abilities to wipe Marlize’s memory, and keep her loyal to him. DeVoe then essentially lobotomized Marlize, starting the cycle over again.
Sure, we still don’t know exactly what DeVoe’s “enlightenment” is, and we don’t know how it will play out for the rest of this season. But this revelation — that he has been drugging and manipulating Marlize for lord knows how long, in a sort of Groundhog Day meets Black Mirror situation — is a pretty interesting development.
As we suggested during the show’s midseason hiatus, there seemed to be more to Marlize’s story than met the eye, especially with her sort of Stepford Wives-esque persona. While we speculated that Marlize’s cadence was all an act to manipulate Clifford, it looks like the actual cause of it could be much worse.
And bringing in this storyline for Marlize, especially this late into the season, feels intentional, and like it could ultimately lead to Marlize potentially redeeming herself. If Marlize breaks out of the cycle in future episodes, she could use her knowledge to ultimately help Team Flash (even though it looks like she will be trying to kill them in next week’s installment). Either way, this feels like an interesting development for the current landscape of The Flash, and it’s safe to say that fans will be watchin to see what happens next.
The Flash airs Tuesdays at 8/7c on The CW.
