Diyah Pera/The CW
"Getting anyone to play a doppelganger that's evil is in some ways the most fun you can have," executive producer Aaron Helbing says of Tuesday's episode.
[Warning: This story contains spoilers from Tuesday's episode of The Flash, "Welcome to Earth-2."]
The Flash's Earth-2 was filled to the brim with evil doppelgangers and comic book easter eggs.
When The CW's DC Comics drama finally traveled to the alternate universe which spawned Jay Garrick (Teddy Sears) and Harry Wells (Tom Cavanagh), Barry (Grant Gustin) and Cisco (Carlos Valdes) came across their fair share of shocking revelations. On Earth-2, Barry and Iris (Candice Patton) are married, and she gave up her journalism career to become a police detective with Arrow's Floyd "Deadshot" Lawton (Michael Rowe) as her partner. Joe (Jesse L. Martin) was never a cop, and spends his nights singing in a club... as well as hating Barry.
As for the rest of the S.T.A.R. Labs team? Caitlin (Danielle Panabaker) and Ronnie (Robbie Amell) are the evil metahumans Killer Frost and Deathstorm, and report to their leader Reverb, aka Cisco's evil counterpart, who also reports to Zoom. But when Deathstorm and Reverb couldn't help themselves and hurt Barry in their epic fight at the end of the hour, Zoom killed his two henchmen for breaking his one rule: capture but don't hurt speedsters. Zoom wants Barry's speed for himself, so he locked him up in his lair, right next to Harry's daughter's cell.
The Flash executive producers Todd Helbing and Aaron Helbing spoke with a small group of reporters about all the Earth-2 shockers and deaths and what's ahead.
After seeing what Reverb can do, will Cisco try to learn more about his powers despite Reverb's death?
Aaron Helbing: Once you're exposed to something that's possible, once Cisco saw the magnitude of the powers that he's capable of, anything is possible now. We may explore that. Getting anyone to play a doppelganger that's evil is in some ways the most fun you can have.
Zoom killed Reverb, but is there a chance we might see Cisco's evil doppelganger again?
Todd Helbing: It's Flash so they may show up again in some form or another. But for the purpose of where we want to take Cisco, having him die there was the best way to get what we want out of this character.
Has Zoom already stolen Barry's speed, or is that still to come?
Todd: [Zoom] hasn't taken his speed yet. That is his plan, to take his speed, so now that he has him, he has 50 percent of what he needs.
Aaron: He doesn't have all the ingredients, per se. We established earlier in the season that he needed other aspects or other people to help with that process.
What's coming up in the second part of the Earth-2 storyline, airing next Tuesday?
Todd: The central story is Barry is trapped by Zoom, how do we deal with that? And back on Earth-1, Geomancer is out there. The Flash is locked up in a cell, so they really don't have a way to deal with him now that they're Flash-less. They have to come up with a new plan and we get to see somebody step up to the plate. Caitlin's been working on the Velocity drug and Jay is adamant against taking it, but with no other choice, we'll see Earth-2 Jay Garrick be the hero we know he can be. Cisco and Wells are trying to come up with a plan on how to get Barry out of the predicament he's in. They seek out help from somebody that you would never expect and they do their best to set up this rescue mission.
Jay took the Velocity 7 drug in order to try and stop Geomancer on Earth-1, but it didn't last very long. Will he start to suffer from other side effects from that?
Aaron: Further down the road, you'll see what happens when you take Velocity 9 and how bad it can get.
Are there other prisoners locked up in Zoom's lair with Barry and Harry's daughter Jesse (Violett Beane)?
Todd: There aren't any other prisoners, but the man in the mask is there for a reason. This is really the first time that [Jesse and Barry] meet. They're in Zoom's lair and you'll see in the next episode how this relationship starts and forms and where it leads them to.
Earth-1 Barry knocked Earth-2 Barry out pretty quickly and he was out for the entire first part of the Earth-2 storyline. Will he return in the next episode?
Todd: You will in the next episode see a lot more of Earth-2 Barry. He's quite a bit different than Earth-1 Barry. From Joe's point of view, he's pretty selfish. That plays into what happens with him in the next episode. He's very entertaining. He's hilarious.
Now that Barry and Cisco know about all these Earth-2 doppelgangers, how will that affect them when they return to Earth-1?
Todd: All these experiences of everyone meeting these doppelgangers -- a lot of that information they now have. So they're able to bring that back if they get back. It affects [Barry] quite a bit. The relationship with Iris really sits with him quite a bit and that's going to be on his mind in upcoming episodes.
There were so many DC Comics nods sprinkled in throughout the hour, like Hal and Diana's names on Barry's speed dial to Mayor Snart and so much more. How did you decide what easter eggs to include in the episode?
Aaron: We had a giant board of probably 50 ideas and we had to whittle them down to the bare bones.
Todd: You try to make them as organic as possible. We would tell you [the easter eggs that didn't make the cut] but they'll probably end up in other episodes.
The Flash airs Tuesdays at 8 p.m. on The CW.
The Flash
