Warning: spoilers ahead for Episode 12 of The Flash Season 4, fittingly called "Honey, I Shrunk Team Flash."
In many ways, The Flash gave viewers a break from a lot of its recent doom and gloom with some fun shenanigans in "Honey, I Shrunk Team Flash." The team (sans Barry) had to try and stop a villain with shrinking powers who shrunk Cisco and Ralph, Cecile developed the power to read minds while pregnant, and Barry helped out his prison BFF Big Sir, even busting Big Sir out of prison when it became clear that he wouldn't be able to clear his name. The gut punch of the episode came at the very end when a new villain emerged to put Barry in a whole lot of danger. Yes, Warden Wolfe (Richard Brooks) figured out that Barry is the Flash, and he decided to sell Barry to none other than Amunet.
Okay, technically, we did already know that the warden was kind of a bad guy. He seemed to take a lot of pleasure in his work, and he targeted Barry almost immediately. The warden was clearly going to be Barry's antagonist while he was incarcerated in Iron Heights. Who could have predicted that he's actually a genuine villain abusing his power to sell metahumans to another baddie who wants to use them to advance her own schemes? Warden Wolfe isn't just a thorn in Barry's side; he's a serious bad guy who needs to be stopped.
Unfortunately for Barry, he's in no position to stop Wolfe as of the end of "Honey, I Shrunk The Flash." He gave himself away as a metahuman when he used his superspeed to bust Big Sir out of the clink in a move that was caught on camera despite his best efforts. Undoubtedly knowing that he'd have no chance of stopping Barry if he confronted him at full power, the warden took steps to drug the prison pudding that Barry so enjoyed.
By the time he came to Barry's cell to reveal that he knows Barry's big secret, Barry was in no condition to use his powers for anything. Barry was dragged to a cell in the metahuman wing of Iron Heights, trapped and powerless while Wolfe made the call to Amunet to arrange the sale of the Flash himself. Oh, Barry. Defeated by pudding!
Now, on the one hand, I was vindictively pleased to see Barry discover what it feels like to be knocked out, dragged to a holding cell to contain his powers, and treated illegally by a person in a position of greater power. After all, isn't that more or less what Team Flash did to the metas trapped in the pipeline in STAR Labs? As far as I'm concerned, Barry deserves to know what it feels like to be pipeline-d, especially since busting Big Sir out of prison was a pretty shortsighted move by the Scarlet Speedster. He was kind of begging to be caught in "Honey, I Shrunk Team Flash."
That said, he doesn't deserve to be sold to Amunet by a warden abusing his power, nor do any of the other metas who have almost certainly been sold to Amunet. In fact, it may be a good thing in the grand scheme of things that Barry was caught by the warden. This arrangement between Wolfe and Amunet needs to be stopped before more metas are harmed, and mixing Barry up in the whole mess will get Team Flash on the case and hopefully put an end to the meta sales.
Of course, Warden Wolfe presents a larger problem now that he knows Barry's identity as the Flash, and there will be even more trouble if he spills the beans to Amunet. Team Flash may have to take one or both of them out for good. We'll have to wait and see. New episodes of The Flash air on Tuesdays at 8 p.m. ET on The CW. We can bet that the Thinker will be back in the mix sooner rather than later, which is really the last thing Team Flash needs now that Barry is in the clutches of some very bad people.
For your other viewing options now and in the not-too-distant future, be sure to take a look at our midseason TV premiere guide and our 2018 Netflix premiere schedule.
