A new Firestorm? King Shark? Iris has a brother? Doppelgangers? Harrison Wells?!?
Yes, The Flash Season 2 Episode 4 was chock full of goodness, as well as story points to push us further along into Season 2.. while even teasing The Legends of Tomorrow spin-off.
With an episode that sparked so many questions about where we go next on The Flash Season 2, it was the perfect time for a Q&A with executive producer Andrew Kreisberg and actress Danielle Panabaker.
Let’s see what they had to say about all fans of this CW smash can look forward to in the coming weeks…
Caitlin The Boss?
It’s no surprise that the sparks between Snow and fellow science nerd Jay Garrick are going to blossom down the line. “There’s going to be some fun and surprises there,” Kreisberg teased. We’ll also see Caitlin trying on more of a leadership role at S.T.A. R. Labs. “[Wells] was the boss and we all followed the law [in season one] and this year it’s feeling different,” Panabaker said. “We’re trying to feel it out and suss it out and whoever has the most expertise or passion or hootspa tends to be the one we follow.” (My money’s on Caitlin!)
The New Firestorm
The producers wanted a different Firestorm than we had with Ronnie. “The idea of a second Firestorm [was] somebody who is just sort of in his early 20s and somebody who was radically different from this Firestorm,” Kreisberg said, addig there’s also a lot of room for comedy between Jax and Stein once we see them on the upcoming spinoff, Legends of Tomorrow.
King Shark
Nobody is as surprised as Kreisberg that they pulled off King Shark. “We actually put him in the comic book adaption because we said, ‘No one’s going to let us do this.'” He added that it was a very expensive 30 seconds and while we won’t be getting a whole Killer Shark episode, he’s happy with what the visual effects team put together and did say that he was sent by Zoom.
Cisco’s Powers
With Stein advising him to maybe embrace his new powers, it still won’t be easy for Cisco. “He doesn’t see what the benefit is yet,” Kreisberg said. “He doesn’t see that it really is a gift and he doesn’t see that it’s a blessing and a power that can be used to help people. Right now, all he sees is the nightmare…’ Barry got super speed and Ronnie gets to fly and me, I get these blinding headache nightmare visions of people getting killed.’ It’s not, at first blush, the most heroic way to step into the world.”
Killer Frost
While Panabaker said she’s fine with Caitlin not having powers, the actress is excited to become a villain in the near future. “I’m so excited for Killer Frost!” Obviously, details are skimpy as to when – or how – Killer Frost comes into the show, but Kreisberg did laugh when he remembered how excited Panabaker was when she was dressed head to toe as the villain. “She looked so incredibly scary and she was going ‘Don’t I look great? Don’t I look awful?!'”
Wally West
Yes, Iris has a brother who is Wally West, Kreisberg confirmed: “Iris is now in the position that Barry was in last year. She’s keeping a secret to protect somebody and she’s going to find that, for all of her anger at Barry and Joe from last year, keeping this secret is not going to be so easy and it’s going to be weighing on her before she finally decides to take some action in an upcoming episode.” Kreisberg also added that Joe is definitely the father to Wally.
Doppelganger-a-go-go
In the words of Kreisberg, “It’s about to go doppelganger-a-go-go on the show. With time travel last year, we kind of tried to ease everybody into it and we kind of tried to do the same thing here where the first episode was how the two guys look exactly alike and then Jay comes over and we establish the idea of Earth 2.” He added they didn’t want to change the feel of the show overall and take over but, that said, the doppelgangers are coming in a big way very soon.
Hello, Harrison Wells
Kreisberg didn’t give up too much intel on what we’ll see when we pick up next, but he did say the following: “The next episode opens in a slightly surprising way.” As a huge fan of Doctor Who, he cited that show regularly wouldn’t pick up where viewers would expect. “Obviously, this scene will play out,” he promised. “I think the beginning of [episode] five is really exciting. You’re going to get a lot of answers to questions you have.” As to whether the Wells we saw is a Doppelganger or Eobard Thawne? Keep watching, he advised.
Crossover Time
The big Arrow/Flash crossover for this year will start to unfold in the next episodes, but Kreisberg did say “conceptually speaking, one of the ways we thought about these episodes in a macro sense was The Flash episode this year plays more like an episode of Arrow, and the Arrow episode plays more like an episode of Flash.” Panabaker added: “It’s exponentially bigger this year too because we factored in all the characters from Legends [of Tomorrow], too.’
Graitlin?
Forget Jay Garrick. Caitlin has a much different connection with Grodd, as Kreisberg revealed: “We have another [episode] in which Caitlin plays Fay Wray to Grodd’s Kong.” Panabaker teased: “In season one you got to see just a tiny bit of her relationship with Grodd and you’ll get to see a little bit more of that and understand their connection from before. He has some unfinished business with her, I’d say.”
