Something is about to happen which hasn’t happened in a very long time: we are going to see a live action version of Barry Allen. Although an active participant in many of DC’s recent animated offerings, there hasn’t been a live-action version of Barry Allen since the 1997 TV movie Justice League, and the short-lived Flash TV show before that in 1990/1991. That changes tomorrow night when Grant Gustin will make his premiere as Barry Allen in the first part of Arrow‘s two-part mid-season finale. Yes, The Flash is too high profile a character to be wasted on a TV show, better served instead by a big budget summer blockbuster movie. Yes, Gustin does not really resemble Barry Allen from the comics, and playing Barry Allen is a completely different story from the regrettably one-note jerks he played on Glee and Gossip Girl. Yes, we’re just getting Barry Allen and not The Flash at this point, but when we do get The Flash the introduction of superpowers could mean the ruin of the grounded in reality Arrow. But forget all of that: we are this close to a Flash TV show. That’s pretty cool.
The producers of Arrow and its planned Flash spin-off sure hope we think its cool. Hoping to get the hype machine going, they screened the mid-season finale for critics after which Arrow executive producers Andrew Kreisberg and Greg Berlanti, writer/DC Comics Chief Creative Officer Geoff Johns and Grant Gustin were made available to answer questions. The following is TVLine’s mostly non-spoilery takeaway on the 8 things we need to know to prepare for the arrival of Barry Allen on Arrow:
HE’S A NICE GUY | “Barry comes to Starling City because there is an unexplained robbery at Queen Consolidated, and Barry is very interested in the unexplained, for reasons we find out over the course of these two episodes,” Kreisberg teased. “He’s the opposite of Oliver in a lot of ways — outgoing and funny, a little bit unsure of himself and smart.” The physical contrast, too, between the square-jawed vigilante and Gustin’s lanky, youthful alter ego is “both comical and fun.”
GUSTIN WOULD BE BARRY’S PAL | The Glee alum, who was the first person to read for the role, “immediately thought [Barry] was funny and endearing, and I hadn’t done anything like that,” the actor said. “He’s fun to play. He’s likable. I would be his friend. I haven’t had the opportunity to play a character that I would actually enjoy spending time with.”
For anyone who saw Gustin’s work on Glee, it is particularly amusing to see him mention that Allen is the first real nice person he’s played. He’s not wrong.
SPARKS FLY | In trying to figure out a way to introduce Barry into Arrow‘s world, the writers spent a lot of time “talking about Oliver and Felicity and their growing … feelings for each other,” Kreisberg revealed. “[Because] Barry and Felicity are so similar — they’re both a bit uncomfortable in their own skins and very likable and personable — it just seemed like they would instantly hit it off, which would just complicate things for Oliver even more. It felt like the right way to go.”
THERE WAS A CHEMISTRY TEST | And we don’t mean one performed by Barry. Emily Bett Rickards, who plays Felicity, was brought in to read with Gustin, after which “it was like a done deal,” Kreisberg related. Joked Berlanti: “We wanted to make sure he didn’t seem like jailbait next to her.”
YOUNG JUSTICE | “We’d always seen [Barry] as being a little bit younger,” allowing for a few playful jabs at the scientist’s expense to address the elephant in the room, said Kreisberg. Not being super-confident and strong, Barry “needs the bolt of lightning to be a hero in a way [Oliver] doesn’t need the bolt of lightning.” Added Johns: “[Oliver] needs the heart, Barry has the heart. [Oliver] has the body, Barry needs the body.”
HIS FUTURE IS BRIGHT | Now that The Flash is getting its own pilot rather than a backdoor one, “Episode 20 will just be an episode of Arrow” — which has actually turned out to be a blessing, Kreisberg admitted. “[A backdoor pilot] actually made it a little bit harder because we were going to have to take a right turn [from] where we were in our ongoing story to incorporate that.” Although Barry may no longer be getting his own episode toward the end of the season, viewers will still hear “about what happened to him in the way that you’re hearing now about Star Labs on the periphery, and certainly in terms of Felicity since she has a connection with him,” revealed Berlanti.
THE DC LORE RUNS DEEP | “We’re using a lot of mythology and characters from the comics in the development of The Flash,” said Johns. For one, the tortured backstory for the character in the comics will play a big role in the pilot. “To use how he reimagined the character’s origin and to have it be so emotional and to now actually be able to render that in pilot form has been terrific,” Berlanti raved.
OTHER FLASHY HEROES | “In success, hopefully, with The Flash, there’s a way to bring on some of the more fantastical characters that will probably still go through the grounding lens with which we view everything [on Arrow],” said Kreisberg, adding that “there’s a hint of a major character in the [Flash] pilot,” but he warned that it could be cut.
So, in summation…..
- Gustin was the first person to read for the role, and the fact that he is only 23-years-old compared to the 32-year-old Stephen Amell is exactly what they wanted and will be addressed.
- To borrow a Buffy the Vampire Slayer expression, there will be some “definite sparkage” between Barry Allen and Felicity Smoak. For the first time in their history, Oliver Queen won’t be the center of Felicity’s lustful gaze. Oliver may not care for this change, though his recent jerk-like (although honest) turn toward only getting involved with women he doesn’t actually care about may prevent him from actually doing anything about it.
- The producers claim that it’s actually a relief to no longer have to do a back-door pilot for Flash as taking a week to visit Central City while major drama is afoot in Starling City was going to be a challenge. Vampire Diaries struggled with that last season, as its backdoor pilot for The Originals did temporarily halt the progress of the larger story arc of the season.
- At the moment, there appears to be no plan to have Gustin return as Barry Allen beyond the next two episodes. However, we will continue hearing about him on the periphery of things (imagine lots of random TV news stories our characters happen to watch) as well as through Felicity, considering how close the two supposedly become.
So, are you sufficiently hyped for Barry Allen’s first episode of Arrow tomorrow night? Or are you kind of annoyed that given everything they could do with Barry Allen it sure seems like he’s pretty much just being used as a tool by which Oliver will be forced to confront whether or not he actually has romantic feelings for Felicity? Let us know what you think in the comments section.