'The Flash': What's next for Barry and Iris?
Warning: This story contains major spoilers from Tuesday’s episode of The Flash. Read at your own risk!
Barry almost died, and Iris may soon die, but that didn’t stop the Scarlet Speedster from properly proposing at the close of The Flash-Supergirl musical crossover on Tuesday.
After being trapped in a movie musical by the Music Meister (Darren Criss), Barry (Grant Gustin) and Kara (Melissa Benoist) were shocked to find that their respective love interests, Iris (Candice Patton) and Mon-El (Chris Wood), were caught in a West Side Story-esque love story involving their rival mobster fathers trying to keep them apart.
The crossover comes as both Barry’s and Kara’s relationships have fallen apart. For Kara, she uncovered that Mon-El lied to her about his true identity for the last nine months, while Iris and Barry pressed pause after he only proposed to her in a bid to change the future and hopefully prevent her death.
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The lesson they both came to learn during the crossover, though - as was the Music Meister’s goal - was that love is enough. Thus, upon returning to the real world, Barry sang the Pasek and Paul-penned love song “Runnin’ Home to You” to Iris, culminating in a true proposal. So, what’s next for the couple?
“They grow closer and closer,” executive producer Andrew Kreisberg tells EW. “They’re both realizing that, like anybody, you don’t know how long you have together, so they’re trying to make every moment count.”
While their romance is back on track, Patton notes it will be placed somewhat on the back burner as there are more pressing issues to deal with. “We’re not going to see wedding bells anytime soon, or wedding planning, because the most imminent situation is Iris’ impending death,” Patton says. “So that’s what we’ll be focusing on for the rest of the season, is making sure that prophecy does not come true.”
Though Barry has had his doubts when it comes to his ability to save Iris while being in a relationship with her, “We’ll see him moving forward with as much confidence as he can have right now with everything that’s happening,” Gustin says, noting that Barry has had blind faith all season that he will somehow persevere. “He lost it for a second and he’s got it back,” Gustin says. “He refuses to accept the reality that she will die.”
However, that doesn’t mean the couple won’t have concerns along the way. “They’re both fighting this, how do I be positive that we’re going to stop this while at the same time being realistic that maybe we don’t?” Kreisberg says. “It’s that push and pull. Like any couple, one starts to lose faith and the other one pulls them back up and vice versa. It’s an interesting dynamic that neither of them wants to wallow, and yet they’re struggling to keep going forward.”
“From reading the scripts, I have to say, she is very strong,” Patton says of how Iris is handling her possible doom moving forward. “She’s accepting that this could be her potential fate. You get to this point in your life where, if you have a terminal illness, you accept that’s a possibility and you start to plan for that. We’ll see Iris deal with those thoughts and emotions as the season plays out.”
Part of looking to the future, however, does not include wedding planning. “We will see that come up in episode 21,” Gustin teases. “It’s brought up for the first time, but it’s the fact that we haven’t been dealing with it is what’s brought up, that we haven’t had time. There’s more of just trying to save her life; it’s the more pressing matter at this point.”
Still, fellow executive producer Todd Helbing notes that this journey will only make the couple stronger. “Now it’s really the two of them as a unit trying to figure out how to stop Savitar and keep her alive,” Helbing says. “While they’ve never been closer, there’s a lot more pressure than there ever has been on them as a couple. They have to figure out how to work through the biggest tragedy that could befall them in the future.”
The Flash airs Tuesdays at 8 p.m. ET on The CW.
