Executive Producer Todd Helbing previews what's to come for Team Flash in upcoming episodes.
This season of The Flash has been all about family -- and those bonds are about to be tested in a big way.
New episodes of the CW's speedster series return on Tuesday, where fans will pick up with Team Flash following the shocking reveal that Nora West-Allen (Jessica Parker Kennedy) -- Barry (Grant Gustin) and Iris' (Candice Patton) speedster daughter from the future -- has been corresponding with her father's nemesis, Eobard Thawne (Tom Cavanagh), sending him her journal entries as she navigates the present and attempts to repair past mistakes.
However, that's not the only conflict coming to Central City. Upcoming episodes will also see Nora suffering a devastating injury at the hands of this season's big bad, Cicada (Chris Klein), Cisco (Carlos Valdes) and Caitlin (Danielle Panabaker) starting work on a potential meta "cure," fans' first look at the Future Iris that Nora knows as her mother, and more.
"I'm excited for [the fans] to learn a little bit more about Nora and Thawne," The Flash executive producer Todd Helbing recently revealed to ET, teasing what he's most looking forward to in upcoming episodes. "And then, just from a pure fanboy perspective, I'm super excited about the King Shark/Grodd episode that we were finally able to do."
Read on for more on what's to come for Team Flash in the rest of season five.
ET: The reveal that Nora has been working with Thawne was the big twist of the midseason finale. How soon are we going to see that storyline begin to unravel?
Todd Helbing: Yeah, we deal with it in episode 10, so we kick off the back half of the season explaining a lot of what's going on with those two. And then, there's quite a bit of Thawne, actually, in the rest of the season. So you get to see this play out in multiple episodes.
Does that mean we'll be seeing less of Sherloque Wells (also played by Cavanagh)?
Yeah, Tom's basically playing two different roles this season, so it's a lot of wigs. But, no, we still see just as much of Sherloque as we have so far.
Obviously, Nora's alliance with Thawne will have a major effect on her relationship with her parents, especially her dad. What can you tease about the fallout coming from that?
Well, I think she didn't tell them for a reason that she was working with The Flash's arch nemesis, but not until episode eight did she get the full understanding of exactly why that would be a bad idea. And so, yeah, I think ultimately it's gonna have to come out at one point. Now she knows [that] is something that, if she can avoid that happening, that would be preferred. But yeah, it's not gonna go over well.
Ultimately, you'll learn about the reason... there's a lot of reasons she came back, but there's one in particular that we'll start to deal with and why she's working with Thawne and how that's gonna affect the future and her future. So all those three sort of ideas are gonna collide at the end of the season.
We see in the midseason teaser that Nora gets injured, and can't move her legs for a time. What can you tell us about that, and how that will affect her and her parents?
If you remember in season two when Zoom broke Barry's back, it was a similar scenario and Henry helped him get past that. So now it's Barry on the parents' side of this. Seeing his daughter get injured in that way, it really sparks a side of Barry that he doesn't like to bring out and it really speaks to Barry and Iris' relationship.
One of the great things about them is that when one person becomes a little unhinged, the other is there to talk them down, and so, it just speaks to their relationship. When they see their daughter [get hurt], it both brings them closer together, but it also puts them in a position where they have to react in a way that they've never had to before.
This year's Elseworlds crossover showed Barry learning to embrace some of his inner darkness when he was the Green Arrow. Is that something that emerges again when Nora gets hurt?
I think it does, this anger certainly emerges, but one of the lessons that I think he learned from the crossover and being Oliver Queen for that little bit, or the Arrow, I guess, is what the path of that anger can lead down. And he saw it in season three with Savitar, so he's familiar with that, but now that it's tied to his daughter I think for moments there it could go in a really bad way.
In the extended preview for the second half of the season, we see Barry and Iris in the Flash museum looking at a little girl who seems to be Nora. Is there anything you can tell us about that scene or how they end up there?
I'll just say it's Nora and Barry and Iris go on this journey both together and separately at the same time. So, in that episode, Nora's trying to keep Barry and Iris from discovering something about her, but Barry and Iris are learning a lot more than what they thought they were going to. So, yeah, it's a really fun episode. I think that's episode 12.
As far as the rest of the team, we know Cisco and Caitlin may be working on some kind of meta cure. What's the story behind that?
Well, you get to see both sides of the argument there, for a while. It's whether they should make one at all, and if they do, how are they gonna deal with it responsibly?
Neither of them was in on the idea of them getting superpowers, so it's this whole idea of choice and their responsibility or their part that they play in creating these people and what would happen if the cure got in the wrong hands. Those are all elements of the back half of the season and it plays into the relationship with those two.
Caitlin and Killer Frost seem to have worked out some kind of mutual understanding, for the time being. But it seems inevitable that a meta cure or even the idea of one, would affect that relationship. Is that going to come into play?
Yeah. If Caitlin were to take it, Killer Frost would vanish, so yeah, it's certainly something that is talked about. And you get to see Caitlin's response to that, and Killer Frost's, for that matter.
We also know that we're going see an older Iris in the future timeline sometime this season. What can you tell us about that?
Yeah, you definitely see Iris... A couple different times you'll see Iris in the future. I don't want to get into if we see anybody else, not yet, but yeah, it's fun. You have to imagine with Barry vanishing and Iris in the future becoming this single mother and raising Nora and her child as speedsters. You've heard about some of the decisions that she's had to make, but now you get to see the woman she became because of all that hardship and pain and why she made those decisions.
There is also a pretty significant shot of that "Flash Vanishes" headline in the teaser. Are we getting closer to learning more about that? Is Iris digging deeper into the mystery of Barry's disappearance?
Yeah, that newspaper carries a lot of baggage, so it sort of influences some of the decisions coming up with Iris. It's certainly a huge storyline for next season, for the crossover, it deals with this. So, there's certainly tidbits that we're gonna start to lay in the rest of the season, so I'll just tell the readers to keep watching and they'll start to slowly get some crumbs that will set up everything that happens next year.
As for the rest of the West family, we saw a little bit of Cecille (Danielle Nicolet) in the extended preview. What can you tease about what's to come for her, as well as the return of Joe West (Jesse L. Martin)?
So, Cecille goes back to work and her first time back she has not the easiest court experience, I'd say. It's just par for the course with anybody that's on our show. But, yeah, we'll definitely get to see Joe West return...We're already shooting. Everybody's super excited to get Joe West back on the show.
And is there a chance that Nora and Wally West (Keiynan Lonsdale) might ever get to meet? Are there any more members of the West family that she's going to encounter in the present or future?
Possibly. We'll see.
The Flash airs Tuesdays at 8 p.m. ET/PT on The CW.
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