Spoilers for the most recent episode of The Flash, "Therefore She Is."
While Barry Allen may be fast on his feet, The Flash's creative team gave him a supreme mental challenge with The Thinker in Season 4, and fans are wondering how the show will wrap up these "enlightening" mind games in order to move onto the next set of adventures. Before anyone puts too much thought into it, though, let's just put it out there that Season 4 will leave some plot strands fully dangling. Showrunner Todd Helbing has confirmed a double dose of cliffhangers is on the way, with the Mystery Girl and the Season 5 big bad at their respective centers.
First, let's all celebrate that Season 4's finale, titled "We Are the Flash," will definitely reveal Mystery Girl's identity, which is an enigma that fans have been insanely curious about ever since she first showed up just prior the Earth-X Nazis arriving for the crossover. As it usually goes, though, we probably shouldn't be so confident that The Flash will deliver comprehensive explanations about Mystery Girl, since revealing her identity could be something as simple as stating a completely unfamiliar name. After all, it wouldn't be called a cliffhanger if everything was summed up concisely.
We know Mystery Girl plays a big role in setting up the story for Season 5, and she'll likely also factor heavily into the story herself, considering her speedster powers. So her presence could be a major game-changer for the new narrative arc. Let's just hope The Flash makes it feel that important by revealing as much as possible about Mystery Girl's backstory.
The second cliffhanger is a touch harder to predict at the moment. Todd Helbing told EW that the "Inception-inspired episode" will introduce the newest evil entity threatening to destroy Central City and/or everything Barry holds near and dear. But then, some fans may already have a good idea of who Barry's next big foe will be. According to Helbing:
Most people that are familiar with comics will probably be able to deduce who the big bad is for next season.
Since the comic books have obviously never hit upon a string of stories that played out exactly as The Flash TV show has, it's not as if there's a specific blueprint to follow there. But then, there aren't so many speculative avenues to currently go down in the season, when The Thinker has sapped up the powers from most of the villainous metas (and others) in the area. You have Marlize, who has taken her own deep intelligence away from her cold and ruthless husband, but I'm not so sure what comic villain she would turn into. And then you have DeVoe himself, who could very well could adhere to The Thinker's New Earth storyline in some fascinating ways. However it goes, here's hoping it all makes enough sense that we don't spend the hiatus as dumbfounded as Harry.
The Flash Season 4 still has a handful of episodes left to go, so tune into The CW every Tuesday night at 8:00 p.m. to see where things are going next. And head to our summer premiere schedule to check out all the new and returning shows popping up after The Flash is done.
