The Flash: Arrow's Ray Palmer is Going to Get Some Help with His Atom Suit
The Flash EP talks about Ray Palmer's visit to Central City and how Arrow is more of a soap opera than The Flash.
February 2, 2015 BY MAX NICHOLSON AND ROTH CORNET
Warning: Some
spoilers for
The Flash to date follow...
Recently, IGN's own Roth Cornet and a handful of other outlets spoke with The Flash executive producer
Andrew Kreisberg about what fans can expect to see in the rest of Season 1. During the Q&A, the EP dropped a few hints about the upcoming Flash/Arrow crossover in which Felicity and Ray Palmer (Brandon Routh) travel to Central City. He also touched on the challenges of working with The Flash and
Arrow's shared universe and how Arrow is more of a soap opera...
Atom Needs a Suit Assist
Last week, we learned that
Ray would be joining Felicity Smoak (Emily Bett Rickards) on her next visit to Central City. But what brings the future Atom to Barry Allan's neck of the woods? "At that point Ray needs a little help with his suit, and who better than Felicity's high-tech guys at STAR Labs?" Kreisberg said. "I hadn't gotten to write much Ray this season on Arrow. I got to write him in the comic book, in the Season Zero that we wrote. I loved it. So getting to write him, he's just so much fun."
Kreisberg also noted that the episode, called "All-Star Team-Up," will feature the debut of the Bug-Eyed Bandit, a prominent Atom villain in the comics.
You've Got a Friend in Geek
When Ray and Felicity arrive at STAR Labs in episode 18, Ray also hits it off with one of Team Flash's crew. "He finds a best friend in
Cisco," Kreisberg revealed. "There's even a line in the script where Felicity says, 'Ray is like Barry in Oliver's body.' [Laughs] Then she goes, 'Oh, God, did I say that out loud?' And Ray, even though he looks like
Brandon Routh, he's just a big tech geek at heart. So he and Cisco quickly bond."
Meanwhile, Barry is having a tough time, much like the last time Felicity was in town. "It happens to come at a particularly bad moment for Barry, but that's partially why we did it," Kreisberg continued. "The first episode with Felicity, episode four, she came along at a time where her experience in being a part of a crime-fighting team definitely helped Barry overcome what he was facing that week. Similarly, when she comes, he's having a crisis of conscience that in some ways only somebody like she can help him through. It's a really fun episode."
The Beauty (and Headache) of Shared Universes
Spoilers for Arrow to date follow...
TV crossovers like "All-Star Team-Up" can be fun, but the shared universe aspect can also be problematic. Kreisberg explained, "Sometimes it's a real hinderance because, even in the room, we're like, 'Oh, Oliver's missing? Call Barry. Have him run all over the place until he finds him.' So when it serves us, it's absolutely great, but the more we talked about it, sort of bringing all that up on the Flash side of things -- especially given all the Flash stories and knowing that Oliver is missing -- it sort of created more problems than it was worth. Because if you address it on the show, then they seem sort of unsympathetic that they're not throwing all their STAR Labs research to finding Oliver. So sometimes discretion is the better part of valor."
He continued, "But then Ray and Felicity are coming -- and that one, actually, because the air dates changed, we're trying to square the circle on what was happening on Arrow when they come to Flash. So hopefully it won't feel too much like an evergreen episode, because we felt like it really worked the first time around... There's [also] an upcoming thing in a Flash episode, which feels like a throwaway, but it actually describes an event that happens in the flashback story this season on Arrow. We do stuff like that. For us, it's so much fun, and hopefully the audience finds it fun. Like last season, with all the mentions of the Accelerator on Arrow."
Arrow is More of a Soap Opera
That said, tonally, The Flash and Arrow are still two very different animals. Kreisberg recalled an upcoming scene on The Flash where Barry and Caitlin end up singing karaoke at a bar. "Jake Coburn, one of the Arrow co-EPs, came by, and I was watching [that scene], and he was like, 'Yeah, scenes like this are where Arrow goes to die.' [Laughs] Like characters going out for a drink or going out for fun. Whenever we try that on Arrow, it never works. We either cut it or, unfortunately, it airs. [Laughs] But it's fun with The Flash. You really can have these 'After work, everybody goes out and has a drink and a fun night.'"
Kreisberg added, "I think one of the great strengths of The Flash is just how close everyone is on the show. They tend not to have these raging conflicts the way we giving everybody on Arrow. [Laughs] That show's more of a soap opera -- and I don't say that derogatorily. I mean, I'm one-third responsible for it. [Laughs] But there we always think to ourselves, 'How can we hurt these people more?' You know, 'What's the worst thing we can do to Thea, and what's the worst thing we can do to Laurel? What's the worst thing we can do to Oliver?' That's where the drama comes from. I think part of the strength of The Flash is that the drama comes from how these people who have banded together and love each other and trust each other deal with conflicts that come their way."
http://www.ign.com/articles/2015/02...-is-going-to-get-some-help-with-his-atom-suit
