Grant Gustin Marks Barry’s Arrival In The Dead Iris Future On 'The Flash'
Date use in fiction strikes again! Finally getting to talk about the main Arrowverse
This is the only day you can retweet this. 2024 was always a significant year for the timeline of the Arrowverse iteration of The Flash for its first five seasons until the Crisis came forward to 2019. However, season 3 seemed to have made the timeline rather volatile. The creation of the Flashpoint timeline is pretty fresh, and the story seems to prioritize the looming death of Barry Allen’s fiancée Iris West at the hands of Savitar over anything Crisis-related.
Nothing exemplifies that more than when in “Abra-Kadabra”, which aired March 28, 2017, Barry decides to head to the future in search of an answer for how to save her. In the next episode, “The Once and Future Flash”, aired four weeks later, he chooses the window of 2024 pre-disappearance, figuring he’d defeated him by then and figured out his identity. After saving Julian, H. R. Wells, and Cisco from a reawakened Killer Frost (this is still pretty early in Frost’s ultimately-heroic story), he reaffirms his plan, and gets to the future with Wally’s help. He arrives, and with alarm sirens and paper litter everywhere, he’s able to quickly pick up from a Central City publication that it’s February 3, 2024. If I had a nickel for every date commemoration this year of a dark future in a DC adaptation I’d have two nickels. Which isn’t a lot on its own but we’re just 34 days into 2024!
Barry is confronted by Top, who disorients him before Mirror Master shows up. They get a little nostalgic and are thrilled to beat him up. But why nostalgic? Because Barry at this point is a recluse hiding at S.T.A.R. Labs’s time vault. What about everyone else? Cisco lost his powers after Killer Frost shattered his hands and must use mechanical prosthetics, Wally is catatonic with a shattered spine, Joe is a depressed and frequent visitor of Iris’s grave, Julian is at Iron Heights, caring for Killer Frost, and H. R. has become a successful novelist. Barry manages to get the team back together after Cisco traps him, as he sought. While Barry does struggle once again with Top and Mirror Master, it’s future Barry who manages to turn the tides with Cisco’s tech. Future Barry puts our Barry in the direction of Tracy Brand, who in that timeline would finally defeat Savitar in 2021, as he heads home like no time has passed, though without having learned who Savitar is.
The expectation for cast acknowledgement was not as high as Zack and Cody’s restaurant reservation in November, but Grant Gustin came through not once, but twice. On his personal Instagram, Gustin wrote “Did someone say it’s February 3, 2024…? (Thanks for reminding me this is a significant Flash day. So crazy it ended up being such a big day for me in real life as we move into The Imperial and start our Broadway journey)”. Broadway journey, you might be asking. Well, Grant is starring in his Broadway debut in a musical adaptation of the Sara Gruen novel Water for Elephants, previously adapted into a 2011 film starring Robert Pattinson and Reese Witherspoon, with Shucked’s Isabella McCalla in the role of Marlena. Previews begin on February 24 before officially opening on March 21. Gustin of course has not only displayed his singing prowess on The Flash, from “Summer Nights” to “Running Home to You” to “Poker Face”, but had come from a beloved three-season recurring role as Sebastian Smythe on Glee when he was originally cast. Well, clearly whoever ran the Water for Elephants socials caught wind too, as a second post, where Gustin holds up today’s New York Post in front of the marquee before reciting the arrival line, captioned “February 3, 2024… he made it. #iykyk”.
Season 3 of The Flash also starred Candice Patton as Iris West, Carlos Valdes as Cisco Ramon/Vibe, Danielle Panabaker as Caitlin Snow/Killer Frost, Keiynan Lonsdale as Wally West/Kid Flash, Tom Cavanagh as Harrison “H. R.” Wells, Jesse L. Martin as Joe West, and Tom Felton, who was given a “Special appearance by” credit, as Dr. Julian Albert. Guest stars were Grey Damon as Sam Scudder/Mirror Master, Ashley Richards as Rosa Dillon/Top, and Andre Tricoteux as Savitar’s suit actor, with Tobin Bell providing the voice. All nine seasons of The Flash are still streaming on Netflix, and here’s to a better future.
Sources: Arrowverse Wiki, Vulture
That’s very cool of him. I’ve been wondering what he might do for April 2024 since that’s the official month for the original crisis.
Also, Star Trek: DS9 has an episode set in September 2024. Hopefully we don’t see it actually happen.