Yahoo News The Flash: 12 big spoilers for season 5
"I'm your daughter Nora, from the future, and I think I made a big, big mistake."
The last season of The Flash closed with the reveal of Mystery Girl's identity, and the next will explore the immediate ramifications, picking up – according to showrunner Todd Helbing – "right where we left off".
Jessica Parker Kennedy, who plays Nora (a character drawing from two different comic heroes, Dawn Allen and Jenni Ognats) has been promoted to series regular for season five, along with Hartley Sawyer as Ralph Dibny and Danielle Nicolet as Cecille Horton.
"I think Jessica is a really good addition," enthuses Grant Gustin (Barry Allen), speaking to Digital Spy at Comic-Con International in San Diego. "And now we've Hartley as a permanent fixture and we've got Dani as a permanent fixture... I think it's the best dynamic our cast has ever had.
"I don't want to speak too soon, but I think it could be our best season. It'll be what The Flash should be."
Bold words, Mr. Gustin! But what exactly should we expect after Nora's big confession? Here's what the cast of The Flash and showrunner Helbing told us.
1. Nora's arrival might spell trouble
So what is Nora's "big, big mistake" – and why has she travelled into the past when The Flash has previously established that time-travel is seriously perilous?
"Iris (Candice Patton) is thrilled [by Nora's arrival] and wants to get to know her and connect with her," Gustin reveals. "Barry is a little more wondering why [she's here], because he feels like, 'If this is my daughter, I'd like to think that in the future I told her, don't time-travel for fun!' So he's a little concerned about why she's here."
Of Barry's relationship with his daughter from the future, Gustin adds: "It's a mentor dynamic at first. He's trying to help her figure out her powers, but he also wants to figure out why she's here."
"It's a unique position to put Barry in," explains Helbing. "Because he's screwed up so many times with the time-line, it's nice for him to be on the other side and coach her through what she did, and [explore] how they get past it."
2. Nora's tension with Iris will be explained, fast
"Barry starts to pick up on some tension that Nora has with Iris," Gustin says. "There's clearly some kind of beef there, and she's real cling-y with Barry. He doesn't know why, but he can tell something's off."
"We're going to see Iris dealing with the fact that her and Nora don't have the best of relationships," echoes Candice Patton. "Iris didn't really have a mother figure growing up, so it's going to speak to a fear she has in herself, that in the future she's not the best mother."
"Definitely something has happened to make me feel much closer to my father than my mother," concludes Kennedy. "It's something that you'll find out relatively early on in this season."
3. The theme for this season is "legacy"
That's according to Helbing, who elaborates, "It's [about] what's really important to people, [in terms of] what they leave behind. Is it more important for Barry to be a good father, or The Flash?"
Will Barry have to choose between his new relationship with his daughter and his life as a superhero?
4. Iris is going back to being a reporter
Early on in the run of The Flash, Iris was established as a blogger and investigative journalist at Central City Picture News, though this aspect of the character was later sidelined in favour of making her leader of Team Flash.
Though she won't be abandoning that role, the fifth season will see Iris return to her journalistic roots in a big way. "I've been pushing for that for years," says Patton. "There's been writers and producers who've also been pushing for that, and then of course fans who are very vocal about Iris going back to being a reporter.
"That's how we know her in the comic books, and that's where she got a lot of her agency in the comic books."
"Also, we live in very precarious times where things are difficult and strange, and journalism is, in its own way, a form of being a superhero. I think it would be very interesting to see them explore those kind of themes through Iris. I hope it's something we really do right on our show, because I think there's a lot of power behind it."
This arc for Iris also links back to a plot thread that's been hanging since the very beginning of The Flash, after she previously revealed that she's now blogging as "Anonymous Central City Citizen".
"Right now it's a blog," Helbing said. "But what we've seen in multiple episodes is that 'The Flash vanishes in crisis' article and it's [in the newspaper] The Central City Citizen, so we just have to get Iris to where she can write this proper newspaper."
5. New villain Cicada poses a different kind of threat
A "grizzled, blue-collar everyman" who seeks to eliminate meta-humans one-by-one to settle a family grudge, this year's Big Bad, Cicada, will be played by Chris Klein(!), staging a bit of a career comeback on The Flash.
"The Thinker last year was [playing] this sort of mind game with Barry," Helbing explains. "This is a physical obstacle for him that he's never had to deal with before."
6. Killer Frost's origins - and the identity of Thomas - will be explored
It was always assumed that Caitlin (Danielle Panabaker) only became Killer Frost as an adult, but a resurfaced memory last season revealed that she's actually been carrying her icy alter-ego around since childhood.
"We'll get to delve into that a little bit more," Panabaker promises, while also hinting at a possible return for Caitlin's mother (Susan Walters). "If Caitlin's got questions about her childhood, who better to go to than her mother?"
The new season will also provide answers as to the identity of the mysterious "Thomas" – last season, Cecille experienced a telepathic blip, with someone (or something?) taking over her mind and telling Caitlin, "I found Thomas; he's been this way all the time."
"I don't think I can answer who Thomas is," Panabaker says. "But for sure that is the journey that Caitlin's going to go on, to understand more about all these questions and her past."
7. Wally will play a small but important role
Wally (Keiynan Lonsdale) returned home for the birth of his half-sister in The Flash's fourth season finale, but won't be sticking around, with Lonsdale having made a decision not to return to either The Flash or Legends of Tomorrow as a series regular.
"Wally... you'll see him in the first episode," Helbing confirms. "He's in three episodes this season. We have not as much time with Kid Flash as I think everybody would like to see, but the story we have for him is really cool, so I hope everybody likes it."
As for the possibility of return appearance from fellow speedsters Jesse Quick (Violett Beane) and/or Jay Garrick (John Wesley Shipp), Helbing would only say, "It's not The Flash without speedsters, so you'll certainly see some others."
8. We'll meet a few new versions of Wells
It's become a tradition on The Flash that each new season introduces us to a new batch of weird and wonderful takes on Harrison Wells, all played by the incomparable Tom Cavanagh.
The first and most prominent will be the Holmes-inspired 'Sherloque' Wells, but we can expect some more variations as the episodes unfold. "I don't think we're going to get the show cancelled with so many Wellses, but we will do a few Wellses!" Cavanagh hints. "We'll keep it right on the cusp."
9. The premiere features a scene direct from the comic books
"We've got an action sequence in [the premiere] that is something straight out of the comics that I first read in 2013 or whatever when I was shooting Arrow, back when I was dreaming of stuff we could do someday on The Flash," beams Gustin.
"We're doing something I thought we would never be able to do."
10. Ralph is going to do "a lot more detecting"
He might be lazy, immature and lackadaisical, but when he puts his heart and mind to it, Ralph Dibny is also a damn good private eye. And after doing a hell of a lot of growing up - oh, and dying - last season, he'll be putting his skills to better use as part of Team Flash this year.
"Last season for me, i always had it painted in my brain that it was the redemption of Ralph Dibny," says new regular Sawyer. "The theme for me was his redemption... going from boy to man, in a way, or man-child to man!
"I think now that he's more mature and adult, it's about him figuring out how he fits into the team and what he can bring to the table."
Helbing elaborates: "Ralph's gonna do a lot more detecting this year than he did last season. The description of Elongated Man [in the comic books] was that he's a detective with skills that rival Batman's, so we want to get him on his journey in that regard this season."
11. Cisco and Ralph will be hitting the town
Don't think we'd forgotten you, Cisco fans! Everyone's favourite tech quiz and inventor of super-villain monikers will be nursing a broken heart this season after breaking up with Gypsy (Jessica Camacho).
Helping him through will be Caitlin, providing valuable advice and a shoulder to cry on, and Ralph, who'll be providing... something else entirely.
"The love for Cisco will mostly come from Caitlin, and from Ralph, who have a personal interest in getting him back on his feet in the wake of such a disastrous break-up," says Carlos Valdes.
"There's going to be a lot to mine there, with the two of them being single men," agrees Sawyer. "Cisco's single, his heart broken, Ralph's single... so lets go see what's out on the town!"
12. The 100th episode of The Flash will be "different"
The eighth episode of The Flash's fifth season, aired in late 2018, will also be the show's 100th outing. To mark the centenary, the team are planning a very special episode – helmed by Tom Cavanagh, in his third directorial effort on the show – but are remaining tight-lipped on the details.
"All I can you tell is... it's a little bit different," says Helbing. "Normally our eighth episode is the crossover – that's going to be the ninth this season, [but] the eighth it's a big thing for us.
"Tom Cavanagh's directing it, which is fantastic. He's a phenomenally talented director, but it also means something to have Tom do it as part of the family since day one. So I'm excited.
"It's going to have the typical mid-season finale ending I would say, but I can't get into too many details right now."
We smell a cliffhanger...
The Flash season 5 begins Tuesday, October 9 at 8/7c on The CW.
Want up-to-the-minute entertainment news and features? Just hit 'Like' on our Digital Spy Facebook page and 'Follow' on our @digitalspy Instagram and Twitter account.
('You Might Also Like',)
