I was very excited when I saw there would be a panel at LA Comic Con with the Cast of ‘The Flash,’ and I made sure to head right over there to ensure I got a good spot. To be perfectly honest, I was a little disappointed when the actors came out to the panel, and we were missing Grant Gustin (Barry Allen), Carlos Valdes (Cisco Ramon), Tom Cavanagh (Harrison Welles), Jesse L. Martin (Joe West) and Kenyan Lonsdale (Wally West), and instead had Teddy Sears (Zoom), Liam McIntyre (The Weather Wizard) and Shantel VanSanten (Patty Spivot) in their places, which felt like was kind of a let down as those three are not even on the show anymore. However, we did have Candice Patton (Iris West) and Danielle Panabaker (Caitlin Snow) on the panel, and together the panel that was there was pretty entertaining and answered a lot of fan questions about the show. It seems the folks behind the panel were not even expecting Liam McIntyre to be there, so he had no seat, so instead of standing around awkwardly, he made the amazing decision to take a microphone and jump into the crowd and MC the panel, making the entire thing a Q&A with the audience, with Liam out amongst the fans getting and answering questions along with the rest of the panelists.
First of all, they talked Kevin Smith, whom everyone loves, and Teddy Sears, in particular, talked about his episode with Smith in Season 2 and how Smith was “in awe” of the world he was getting to play in, and worked exceptionally hard to do it justice. Danielle spoke about Kevin’s episode for Season 3, saying that she, in particular, was excited for it (episode 7!) as it will apparently have a lot to do with her and her newly developing powers. When asked whether her powers meant a turn to the dark side for her character, Danielle played coy and gave no definite answers, though she did hint that her new abilities may be something that she will not choose to share with the team for some time.
Other questions that were asked included whether Iris and Joe West’s relationship was truly back on track, to which Candice gave a very firm yes, although she did admit that plotline was wrapped up pretty quickly. When asked if he was aware of who was in the iron mask in Season 2 (since he was the villain), Teddy Sears admitted that he did not know, which made it a fun surprise for him when he saw the end of Season 2. When Shantel was asked about if Patty would ever be coming back, she pointed out that “she [Patty] was put on a train, but she ain’t dead.” And when asked about whether we would be seeing Wally back as Kid Flash this season, Candice and the rest joked that they could not reveal much, but Candice did state that “It’d be a waste of a suit otherwise.”
They also spoke very highly of Tom Cavanagh and his many versions of Harrison Welles, and the energy the man as an actor brings to the set. Teddy spoke of improvising some lines with Cavanagh even in dramatic scenes and they all spoke about how he ups their game as actors as they work to keep up with him. And Danielle told the crowd that the newest (3rd) version of Harrison Welles that we just met (who was jokingly referred to as “hipster Welles”) is her favorite version of the character.
Definitely a lot more entertaining than I thought it would be considering the lack of many of the principle actors, and definitely went a long way toward getting me excited for what is coming up for us this season on ‘The Flash!’
Nick is a freelance writer based in Los Angeles, who belongs to the privileged few who enjoyed the ending to ‘Lost.’ For more of Nick’s thoughts and articles, follow him on Twitter.
