John Wesley Shipp On What Excites Him About Returning to 'The Flash'

When John Wesley Shipp brings Jay Garrick back to the world of The Flash on tonight's episode, titled "Enter Flashtime," he will be fighting side by side with Grant Gustin's Barry Allen for the first time in a while -- and the two will get to spend some quality time together onscreen for the first time since Shipp played Henry Allen, Barry's dad.

Shipp, who played Barry himself in the 1990 series, was revealed at the end of season 2 as the face behind an iron mask that had lingered as a mystery all season long. With Barry's Earth-1 father dead, Jay Garrick turned out to be his Earth-3 doppelganger, and gave Shipp not only a new way to interface with Gustin/Barry and with the story itself, but also another chance -- to fans' delight -- to suit up as a speedster again.

"The thing that I loved about this episode, I had so many close scenes with Grant as Henry Allen," Shipp told ComicBook.com. "There was such a camaraderie, and there was such a connection. Once I became Jay Garrick, it was much cooler in temperature and we had to go through a process of warming up to each other. Because I had started my Jay being skeptical of Barry, and if he was gonna change the timeline every time he got upset. Well by this time we're working together. And it's a restoration of a camaraderie not only between Jay and Barry, but between John and Grant that I had been missing. So I have to tell you, I'm very excited about people seeing this episode. I think it's gonna blow some minds. It's also very Grant-centric. We get to see him operating all over the place as a hero. And anytime he gets to shine like that, you know it's gonna be brilliant."

The episode is something of a tonal sequel to the episode spent in the Speed Force, last season, when Garrick took Barry's place so that Barry could leave the Speed Force and do battle with Savitar. The ticking clock element, though, fundamentally changes the slower, more philosophical tone that the Speed Force episodes generally took to something more urgent and deadly.

The Flash airs on Tuesday nights at 8 p.m. ET/PT on The CW.