The CW has released a brand new batch of photos from "King Shark vs. Gorilla Grodd", the fifteenth episode of The Flash's fifth season -- and this time the fan-favorite villains are taking center stage in what may be their best versions yet.
These new photos build on images released last month that feature some interesting tidbits about the upcoming episode. Namely, the photos show Team Flash being joined by Dr. Tanya Lamden (Zibby Allen), the wife of the Earth-1 version of Shay Lamden (Dan Payne). Seeing as King Shark is really the Earth-2 version of Shay, it looks like Team Flash will be relying on the Lamdens as a way to potentially help the beast.
(Weirdly, Earth-1 Shay Lamden canonically died of cancer years before King Shark was first introduced, so it will be interesting to see how the show retcons things for this episode.)
The photos also showcase the return of Joe West (Jesse L. Martin), who has been missing in action in Central City for much of this season. Martin was forced to take a leave of absence from the show due to medical problems, with his return teased earlier this year.
"King Shark vs. Gorilla Grodd" will make good on the face-off that fans have been waiting for since well before The Flash's fifth season kicked off last fall. Showrunner Todd Helbing revealed at the show's San Diego Comic-Con panel last year that the team up was coming and now, it's here.
"We're going to really try to get King Shark and Grodd [teaming up]." Helbing revealed, "probably in the second half."
With both Grodd and King Shark being heavy on the VFX, it's a task that will no doubt put the show's award-winning VFX team to the test, but even as far back as 2015, the show's VFX supervisor Armen Kevorkian was up to the challenge.
"[Grodd is] challenging, I'll tell you for a number of reasons," Kevorkian told ComicBook.com at the time. "Obviously , there's a lot of eyes on something like that when you do it for television, you know, doing an animated gorilla, especially coming off a year when Planet of the Apes did what they did. So the challenge is more internal, where you're nervous or like 'How are we going to pull this off?" But again, I think with planning -- and we've got an amazing team of talented artists -- you sort of figure out as you go, what's the best way to do this with the time and resources that you have."
You can check out the synopsis for "King Shark vs. Gorilla Grodd" below and keep scrolling to check out all of the photos from the episode!
"THE ULTIMATE SHOWDOWN -- When Gorilla Grodd (voiced by David Sobolov) attacks Central City, Barry (Grant Gustin) and Team Flash find themselves teaming up with an unexpected ally to defeat -- King Shark (voiced by David Hayter).
However, when they hit a snag, they bring in Dr. Tanya Lamden (guest star Zibby Allen) to try to reach the man behind the shark, Shay Lamden (guest star Dan Payne).
Stefan Pleszczynski directed the episode written by Eric Wallace & Lauren Certo."
