The Flash boss on the Legends Easter egg, vanishing [SPOILER], and 'hardcore' season 8B
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Warning: This contains spoilers from the March 9 episode of The Flash, "Impulsive Excessive Disorder."
The Flash's midseason premiere contained a delightful Easter egg referencing another Arrowverse show.
In Wednesday's episode, Bart (Jordan Fisher) and Nora (Jessica Parker Kennedy), Iris (Candice Patton) and Barry's (Grant Gustin) adult children from the future, returned to the year 2049 after attending their parents' vow renewal ceremony in 2021. Upon arriving, though, they discover that the timeline has changed and rush to the Flash Museum to figure out what happened. As they surf through the archives, they come across a curious newspaper headline that reads "Booster Gold Thanked at White House" accompanied by a hammy photo of Scrubs' Donald Faison.
If for some inexplicable reason you aren't watching DC's Legends of Tomorrow, then you may have missed the significance of this all-too-brief shot, so let us explain: This is a reference to Legends' introduction of Faison as the fame-hungry DC hero Booster Gold in its season 7 finale, which aired last week. If the show returns for an eighth season, Faison will likely take on a bigger role.
In normal times, The Flash alluding to Legends wouldn't be that unusual because they all take place in the same universe and regularly cross over; however, these are, as has been noted for the past two years, unprecedented times and moments like this have been non-existent because the ongoing pandemic made airdates less fixed than before. Without locked-in airdates, the Arrowverse shows not only couldn't crossover, but they couldn't reference each other either, because that would risk spoiling another series' plot twist or creating continuity confusion if someone's airdate changed. Yet somehow, The Flash, whose pilot begged us to believe in the impossible, pulled what seemed incredibly unlikely with this Booster Gold nod.
Bettina Strauss/The CW Donald Faison as Booster Gold on 'Legends of Tomorrow'
According to showrunner Eric Wallace, it came together pretty easily while they were editing the midseason premiere.
"It was just a kind of a fun coincidence," he tells EW. "I was in post working on episode 806 and I knew the kids, Bart and Nora, would be looking at future things in the Flash Museum. And the head of post for our show and for Legends is the same person, Geoff Garrett. He happened to mention, 'Oh, by the way, don't tell anybody, but Booster Gold is going to be appearing in the finale of Legends.' I'm big Booster Gold fan, and I went, 'Hey, have they cast that person yet? I have a crazy thought. What if we see our kids in this episode looking through newspapers and we see whoever you guys have cast really fast, kind of a connected thing?' And he said, 'Well, it's funny you should mention that, Eric, because the finale of Legends airs the week before Flash returns.'"
Wallace continues: "So we made a few calls. I called up Phil [Klemmer], the showrunner of Legends, pitched him the idea. After he stopped laughing so hard he's like, 'Of course, definitely do that.' And then it was a very simple matter of just talking to the actor Donald Faison and getting his permission just to use a picture. He was into it. Next thing you know, it's in the show. It all happened in literally 24 hours. It was hilarious."
Shane Harvey/The CW Jordan Fisher as Bart Allen and Jessica Parker Kennedy as Nora West-Allen on 'The Flash'
After figuring out how far back the timeline changes went, Bart and Nora sped to the year 2013 to set things right, which involved making sure their grandfather Joe (Jesse L. Martin) wasn't promoted sooner than he was supposed to be and preventing the Royal Flush Gang from killing a bunch of civilians during a casino heist. In the end, the chaotic duo saved the day, and when they returned to the year 2049, Jay Garrick (John Wesley Shipp) was alive and married to the right woman.
But that doesn't mean all of the show's timey-wimey problems have been resolved. In the episode's stinger, a leveled-up Barry whisks all of Team Flash to France to celebrate New Years Eve. After they depart, Iris' hairbrush vanishes in a puff of green energy, which means something is still amiss in the timeline. Is this a consequence of Bart and Nora messing time or the dangling season 7 thread that is Iris' time sickness?
"It's all connected," Wallace teases. "We're telling the audience this is us reconnecting to Iris's story of her time sickness and there will be, not only an exploration of it, but there are consequences for messing with time in ways that Team Flash doesn't see coming."
In addition to Iris' curious time sickness, the back half of season 8 will also pick up on several other details from the five-part "Armageddon" event from the fall.
"All of the little kernels of 'Armageddon' that might have been left hanging emotionally are kernels that sprout over the rest of season 8. There's a reason why, for example, there's a scene between Caitlin [Danielle Panabaker] and Thawne [Tom Cavanagh] in there (That's one of my favorite scenes, I've said many times, in 805.) There's a reason in 803 that Iris is at a train station with Deon talking about timey-wimey things. Look at those things. If you want to get ready for the new season, go back and re-watch 'Armageddon' on the CW app," says Wallace with a laugh, likely pleasing the Powers That Be at the network for the plug. "We had a master plan and 'Armageddon' was only part one of three parts. If you want to divide the season into three: 'Armageddon' part one; the middle Graphic Novel, part two; and [then] our big finale in which we're not trying to outdo ourselves from last year. We're trying to do something a little different that is a little wilder and perhaps a little more terrifying. Team Flash is about to go to through some very intense times. I'm not kidding. It's about to get hardcore."
The Flash airs Wednesdays at 8 p.m. on The CW.
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