This paper explores the phenomena associated with pulsed discharge energy deposition in the near-surface gas layer in front of a shock wave from the flow control perspective. The energy is deposited in 200 ns by a high-current distributed sliding discharge of a ‘plasma sheet’ type. The discharge, covering an area of mm2, is mounted on the top or bottom wall of a shock tube channel. In order to analyse the time scales of the pulsed discharge effect on an unsteady supersonic flow, we consider the propagation of a planar shock wave along the discharge surface area 50–500 μs after the discharge pulse. The processes in the discharge chamber are visualized experimentally using the shadowgraph method and modelled numerically using 2D/3D CFD simulations. The interaction between the planar shock wave and the discharge-induced thermal layer results in the formation of a lambda-shock configuration and the generation of vorticity in the flow behind the shock front. We determine the amount and spatial distribution of the electric energy rapidly transforming into heat by comparing the calculated flow patterns and the experimental shadow images. It is shown that the uniformity of the discharge energy distribution strongly affects the resulting flow dynamics. Regions of turbulent mixing in the near-surface gas are detected when the discharge energy is deposited non-uniformly along the plasma sheet. They account for the increase in the cooling rate of the discharge-induced thermal layer and significantly influence its interaction with an incident shock wave.