Fans of The Flash didn’t want to believe it, but the midseason finale showed Barry Allen outsmarted by The Thinker – and facing a prison sentence because of it.
Or it could have been taken as a positive: to defeat The Thinker, Barry Allen would need to trust in his own metahuman intellect, and think, not run.
In fact, the master plan of The Thinker is still largely a mystery.
When it was first revealed that the villain of The Flash season 4 was going to be The Thinker, and not another speedster, all involved were hopeful.