Take me where you want me lover
Take me where you want me
And in your darkest hour
I'll move through you...
Take me where you want me
And in your darkest hour
I'll move through you...
— Lyves, "Darkest Hour"
Team Flash is looking for the last bus metahuman, Edwin Gauss.
Tropes:
- All Your Base Are Belong to Us: DeVoe and Marlize teleport into Star Labs, with the former using Kilgore's powers to override control of the building.
- Arc Words: Despite the Ironic Echo last week, Clifford once again says "I'm nothing without you" to his wife after shapeshifting back into his original form. note
- Back for the Dead: Melting Point and Null's bodies are shown just after DeVoe has taken their powers.
- Badass Bookworm: It is revealed Marlize can do swordfighting.
- The Bad Guy Wins: DeVoe's only remaining bus meta is Neil Borman, AKA Fallout.
- The Big Damn Kiss: After DeVoe uses Ralph's powers to have his original likeness, Marlize is excited and both kiss passionately.
- Body Horror: Ralph hiding the tuning fork in his torso and later pulling it out again is quite gross. Lampshaded by Edwin Gauss.
- Bait-and-Switch: Team Flash teleport to a location they think DeVoe will come out of his Pocket Dimension, sees a portal opening up...and instead meet the last bus-meta, Edwin Gauss, by complete accident.
- Brought Down to Normal: DeVoe takes away Caitlin's powers, just as she was beginning to accept being Killer Frost.
- The Bus Came Back: DeVoe uses Ralph's shape-shifting powers to take the form of his original body.
- This is also done literally, as Barry and Ralph examine the bus where several characters gained metahuman powers.
- Call-Back:
- Two Samuroids appear.
- Iris and Marlize's conversation about how far they'd go is a call-back to their conversation during "The Trial of the Flash".
- Curbstomp Battle:
- Barry knocks Ralph on his ass with one punch.
- Similarly, DeVoe easily disposes of Barry, Cisco and Caitlin after taking over Ralph's body.
- Darkest Hour: Team Flash try to protect the bus meta of the week, and seem to have succeeded, only for DeVoe to be one step ahead and kill this one as well. He also finally kills and inhabits Ralph; shutting down Caitlin's powers means Killer Frost, by now accepted as a character in her own right and a friend, is dead too. DeVoe's collection seems to be complete (he didn't get Neil Borman, but as Ralph's is the only body that he won't burn out, he surely saved Ralph for last) and is ready to begin his endgame. Oh, and Harry overclocks the Thinking Cap and fries his brain to a crisp. There is even a song called "Darkest Hour" sounding while Barry mourns Ralph in his office.
- Deliberate Injury Gambit: Iris takes down Marlize by stabbing herself with Marlize's katana to immobilize the katana, grab Marlize's hair and send her back to the pocket dimension.
- Does This Remind You of Anything?: Harry's constant use of the Thinking Cap plays out like a drug addiction, something noted in-universe by Joe, who compares it to what happened with his junkie ex-wife. Harry even looks like a child with a temper tantrum although as a fifty-something man he should be more dignified.
- Double-Meaning Title: The title references the possible jump in the slippery slope for Harry and Ralph, as well as Gauss' ability to disappear into a pocket dimension. An additional meaning could be Ralph actually losing himself to DeVoe and his powers. Caitlin losing Killer Frost can also apply to this.
- Downer Ending:
- DeVoe wins, and Team Flash fails to save any of the Bus Metas. On top of that, Caitlin loses her Killer Frost powers, and DeVoe has acquired dark matter to further his plans.
- Harry has apparently burned out his brain on dark matter. It is unlikely the outcome for him would turn out to be good.
- Due to the Dead: Barry pays his respects to Ralph by having one last drink in his old office.
- "Eureka!" Moment: Ralph learns that Edwin has secretly been to The Thinker's lair (by accident, and seemingly without either DeVoe's knowledge) when Edwin describes seeing a woman in white, Marlize, during one of his portal jumps.
- Face Death with Dignity: Ralph calmly accepts DeVoe hijacking his body and thanks Barry for helping him become a better person before dying.
- Failure Hero: In the end, Team Flash couldn't save any of the Bus Metas (with the exception of Fallout, who is still at Tracy's lab).
- Five-Second Foreshadowing: Fans are clued in on that the team could never have ambushed DeVoe so early in the episode when the portal opening up in front of them is visually very different from DeVoe's own portals.
- Forced to Watch: DeVoe makes sure the entire team, and especially Barry, is an audience when he kills Ralph.
- Gravity Master: As DeVoe demonstrates, Null's powers are able to increase gravity as well as decrease it. DeVoe even commented that she didn't know the full potential of her powers.
- He's Back!: DeVoe is able to take on his original appearance again due to Ralph's powers.
- Hope Spot: Ralph takes down DeVoe and chooses not to kill him...then it turns out that DeVoe used Kilgore's powers to render the power-dampener slapped on him useless, thus allowing him to break free and transfer himself into Ralph.
- If You Kill Him, You Will Be Just Like Him!: Barry tries to get Ralph to desist from killing DeVoe.
- Impaled with Extreme Prejudice: Both Caitlin and Iris get stabbed through the shoulder, and both just shrug it off like it's a scratch.
- Jerkass Has a Point: Ralph was very right with pointing out how Team Flash's non-lethal-approach has so far accomplished nothing against DeVoe but all of the Bus Metas dying. And at the end of the episode, Ralph is now dead too...
- Kick the Dog: To make Cisco confess where the thinking cap is, Harry destroys a small model of the USS Enterprise NCC-1701 that Cisco was designing. The worst part is that Cisco didn't have it.
- Killed Offscreen: DeVoe absorbs the powers of Melting Point, Null, and Folded Man offscreen, and takes the body of the last one as well.
- Let's You and Him Fight: Barry and Ralph come to blows during their argument on whether or not to kill DeVoe. Barry ends the fight in mere seconds by punching Ralph out cold.
- Motive Misidentification: Barry assumes Ralph wants to kill DeVoe because the latter is terrified of being killed. The truth is Ralph is actually afraid of what DeVoe might do to the other members of Team Flash.
- Mundane Utility: Harry has learned to do omelettes by using the Thinking Cap.
- Never Bring a Gun to a Knife Fight: Iris wields a BFG against Marlize, who has a katana. The gun gets knocked out of Iris' hands before she can use it, and when she gets it back, Marlize cuts it in half.
- Nice Job Breaking It, Hero:
- Unbeknownst to Harry at the moment, he provided the dark matter necessary for DeVoe's plan while putting Dark Matter into his thinking cap.
- Thanks to Barry convincing Ralph that killing DeVoe would be wrong, Ralph gives up a perfect chance to do just that and ends up killed.
- Also, all the training Team Flash made Ralph go through? Provided DeVoe with a body with perfect control over his powers.
- Non-Lethal K.O.: Barry punches Ralph to stop him from killing DeVoe.
- Offscreen Moment of Awesome: Joe grabs the katana and faces The Samuroid (who at the beginning of the season was a threat too big for anybody but The Flash), next time we see him he got The Samuroid's head impaled in the sword and doesn't seem to be hurt or even tired.
- Personal Horror: Barry who had previously told Ralph that he'd regret doing nothing gets to be unable to move and watch DeVoe kill Ralph.
- Red Herring: Eobard's not here. Harry's been using Gideon to funnel dark matter into the Thinking Cap.
- The Reveal: The reason that DeVoe saved Ralph's body for last, despite having ample opportunities previously? Because due to the unique nature of Ralph's powers (i.e. the elasticity and adaptability of his cells), they're capable of changing to safety accommodate the stress that the added dark matter puts on the previous hosts, meaning that there's no danger of wearing through his host body. And, as a bonus due to the fact that Ralph is a Shapeshifter, DeVoe can literally "be himself" again.
- Self-Serving Memory: Ralph tells Barry that he encountered Gauss when he helped pay Gauss' bus fare. An immediate flashback shows the opposite to be true (Gauss paid Ralph's fare). Ralph even stole the money when the driver wasn't looking.
- Shoo Out the Clowns: Ralph is killed off this episode. The next ones take a more serious tone.
- Staging an Intervention: Joe does this for Harry who's slowly becoming addicted to his Thinking Cap; he doesn't want what happened to Francine to happen to Harry.
- Storming the Castle: Barry, Cisco, and Killer Frost attempt to do this to DeVoe's pocket dimension, only for him to anticipate it and teleport into Star Labs at the same time, stranding them.
- Thou Shalt Not Kill: Brutally deconstructed. While Ralph initially wants to kill DeVoe, Barry firmly insists that heroes should never kill. When Ralph gets his chance, he decides to spare DeVoe's life and capture him alive instead, which results in Ralph's death and DeVoe's escape and ultimate victory.
- Titled After the Song: The title is taken from an Eminem song.
- Totally Radical: Edwin Gauss is a textbook hippie.
- True Companions: Ralph considers his new friends a family for him; he's not afraid what DeVoe will do to him, he's afraid of what he'll do to them!
- We Hardly Knew Ye: We didn't know Edwin Gauss for long before he was possess/killed by Devoe.
- Wham Episode: DeVoe gets Ralph's body and all of the bus metas but Fallout, and depowers Killer Frost.
- Yank the Dog's Chain: Caitlin and Killer Frost are revealed to have finally come to an understanding, and even look like they're genuinely becoming friends in spite of their circumstances...but then the Thinker (through Matthew Kim's powers) seemingly kills Killer Frost.
- You Can't Thwart Stage One: DeVoe has nearly completed all the preparations needed to begin the Enlightenment.
