By Kay-B
San Diego Comic-Con is the best event to cover, especially when your one true fandom gives you all of the scoop! The Beat was on hand to chat with Grant Gustin (Barry Allen/The Flash) about what we can expect from the fastest man alive this season!
Season 5 was a rollercoaster of events, ending with the tragic death of Nora West-Allen (Jessica Parker Kennedy), daughter of our beloved #WestAllen from the future, and leaving nothing but pain and sadness for her parents. So, how is Barry coping with yet another death of a family member?
“He’s trying to fill the void he now has, in classic Barry fashion,” Gustin said. “He’s a little in denial and it’s messing with him when the season first returns. He’s having a really hard time accepting her death and vanishing. So, instead, he’s being extra optimistic and is pushing himself to do as much good for the city as he can to kind of fill that hole. But Iris (Candice Patton) is the first to acknowledge that neither of them is dealing with this pain in the healthiest way. And we have some great scenes at the start of the season with each other where we’re trying to figure it out.”
He continued, “We could say that this tragedy brings them closer together. I mean, because it’s a loss they’ve both experienced, at first, I think we’ll probably see them drift further apart as they deal with it in different ways, and not together as a unit. But there will be a moment when Iris kind of acknowledges their separation and tells Barry that the only way they’re going to be able to get over this, is if they do it together.”
What kind of tone can we expect from the team this season, since everyone is doing their thing career-wise? “We’re going to see a different tone from Joe because he’s the captain. So, it’ll be a new dynamic with Joe and Ralph, now that Ralph is a PI again,” Gustin said. As for Barry’s CSI work: “It’s pretty status quo with the amount of CSI work we’re seeing Barry do just because he’s got a lot of other things going on right now. I mean, I would always love to see more CSI stuff, especially like we did in the pilot, but it’ll be about the same amount as last season.”
Gustin also opened up about season six’s new “big bad,” Dr. Ramsey/Bloodwork. He said, “I am really excited to work with Sendhil Ramamurthy, having heard such wonderful things about how talented and nice of a guy he is. All I can say is that he is a different type of ‘big bad’ and he has a connection to Caitlin, so initially, there’s a history there. Barry wants to give him the benefit of the doubt when they meet and of course, it’s going to mess with him a little bit because this is his classic, biggest problem: letting someone in and getting stabbed in the back.”
So far, he said his favorite villain to go toe-to-toe with is Reverse-Flash. Gustin explained, “Reverse-Flash (Tom Cavanaugh) has the most history there, and Teddy Sears (Zoom) is also another actor I’ve gotten close to as well. I have gotten close to a lot of actors who’ve come on set. But Tom is one of my best friends, plus a talented actor and I really like the Reverse-Flash story a lot.”
We’ll just have to wait and see how Bloodwork compares to Reverse-Flash when The Flash returns! Until then, you can check out Bloodwork’s ominous voiceover in the Comic-Con 2019 sizzle here, and get ready for the season six premiere on October 8th.
