'The Flash': Will The Thinker Target Harry?
The Flash is back form it's month-long hiatus, and that means Team Flash's efforts to stop The [...]
The Flash is back form it's month-long hiatus, and that means Team Flash's efforts to stop The Thinker have resumed. However, even as the team looks to protect one of their own against this season's big bad, fans can't help but wonder if they're missing his real target: Harry.
Fans of The CW series has had many theories about The Thinker/Clifford DeVoe (currently being played by Miranda MacDougall), and not just his master plan, but who he is targeting. As we've seen with the villain's collection and absorption of nearly all of the so-called "Bus Metas" this season, the natural assumption is that Ralph Dibny/Elongated Man (Hartley Sawyer) is on his target list. It makes sense. Ralph is one of the metas created when Barry Allen/The Flash (Grant Gustin) emerged from the Speed Force in the season's premiere, but we've also seen that with each new metahuman that DeVoe takes on the body he's inhabiting degrades faster and faster. The strain of the accumulated from each new meta combined with the immense energy needs of DeVoe's brain simply wears them out. Ralph's body isn't likely to withstand the strain any better.
But you know whose might? Harry's.
You see, with Harry (Tom Cavanagh) being from a different Earth, his body has a different vibrational frequency. This was explained during the show's second season when Cisco tried to vibe the villain Zoom and discovered that his goggles simply didn't work with Earth-2's frequency. That frequency difference might be enough to allow his body to carry the burden of all that dark matter without folding while Harry's own natural intelligence and mental capacity might be enticing for The Thinker as well. After all, the villain is motivated by the idea of "enlightening" the world even if we don't yet know exactly what that looks like.
We've also seen that something is decidedly off with Harry. Harry has grown increasingly fixated on outsmarting DeVoe, but even beyond that, the episode closed out with Harry going into the secret lair built by the evil Reverse Flash imitation of Harrison Wells -- let's call him Wells!Thawne -- and activating the villain's AI, Gideon. While it's possible that there's a crazy situation where Wells!Thawne is imitating the real Harry, it's also possible that Harry is simply growing even more obsessed with stopping The Thinker. It's something that would likely alert The Thinker to Harry being a suitable target and it's also something that Cavanagh's co-star Carlos Valdes told Entertainment Weekly will impact Harry's relationship with Cisco.
"The biggest secret weapon that Team Flash has at the moment is the Thinking Cap," Valdes explained. "It seems to be the next logical step in taking down DeVoe is to match his intelligence. However, that situation starts to get complicated. Harry gets ahead of himself and some dark secrets come out that definitely complicate his relationship to the team, especially his relationship to Cisco."
Whatever those dark secrets are -- and whatever The Thinker's long game is -- the idea that it might not be Ralph the villain is after is definitely an interesting one and one that could have far-reaching consequences should the season's big bad be successful.
Do you think The Thinker could target Harry? Let us know what your think in the comments below.
The Flash airs Tuesdays at 8/7c on The CW.