Earth-1 will not be the same again, after last season’s jaw-dropping cliffhanger. It all seemed to be going to turn out just fine – after all, they had finally defeated Zoom and all was well again – but a grieving Barry decided to act recklessly, after his father was murdered, and ran back in time to save his mother. That single action will most likely have so many catastrophic repercussions, because Barry managed to erase an entire timeline, and has no idea what kind of present (future?) he has created.
THE FLASH stars Grant Gustin, Candice Patton, Jesse L. Martin, Tom Cavanagh, Danielle Panabaker, Carlos Valdes, Keiynan Lonsdale — along with executive producers Todd Helbing and Aaron Helbing — took to the stage at San Diego Comic-Con to tease what’s coming up in season 3. Tom Felton (who is joining the cast as Julian Dorn) also made an appearance on the panel.
Thanks to a preview for season 3 (watch it below), we know a lot of things changed when Barry saved his mother. His mother and father are alive, Cisco is filthy rich, Iris and Barry don’t know each other and Reverse Flash is back and trapped. How big are the changes? “This is something that is going to ripple throughout the whole season,” the producers said. And several characters will have different relationships with different characters.
The Flashpoint paradox will also be affecting ARROW. One of the effects is with Diggle himself, although they wouldn’t go into any details.
Other highlights:
- There will be two big bads this season. One is a speedster that they will reveal later. The other (spotted in a mask in the preview for season 3) is Dr. Alchemy. He’s a bad guy and will be a formidable adversary to the Flash and everyone else on the team for the season.
- Barry doesn’t realize how big the changes are. He’s unaware of the other changes beyond his parents being alive, Gustin said. When we find him, he’s been living in the Flashpoint timeline for three months. Joe, Iris and Barry are just acquaintances. But there’s hope for Barry and Iris, because the producers said that in any timeline Barry and Iris will find one another.
- Valdes says Flashpoint Cisco is an “ostentatious billionaire”. His specialty? “Making money. He’s always flexing how much money he has.” But there will still be quips and he’s still an engineer at heart.
- In the new timeline, Joe is “very unhappy,” Martin said. He’s having big issues with his daughter and it “doesn’t seem solvable. So Joe becomes quite depressed about it. It starts to affect his life and starts to affect his work.” Apparently things get so dire that Barry is the reason Joe still has a job because it seems like Barry is covering for Joe.
- Lonsdale says that Wally West/Kid Flash has a “young, light-hearted cockiness to him” that can sometimes be his downfall. But he’s never been “more sure of himself”.
- Felton teased that there will be “friction” between Barry and Julian early on in the season and Julian will be stepping on Barry’s toes in terms of Barry’s role as a forensic expert.
- Harrison Wells isn’t around in the Flashpoint timeline, so there’s no indication how Cavanagh will return yet.
- The Helbings said that Felicity would appear on THE FLASH this season.
THE FLASH will return for its third season on Tuesday, October 4 at 8:00 p.m. ET/PT on The CW.
