Sarah Carter On the Difference Between ‘Smallville’ And the Arrowverse

Long before she took on the role of Grace Gibbons/Cicada II on The Flash, Sarah Carter had a short run on Smallville, The CW’s genre-defining DC Comics adaptation and arguably the godfather of the Arrowverse. In that series, she played fan-favorite character Alicia Baker, who had a relationship with Clark Kent. A teenager with the metahuman ability to teleport, Alicia became obsessed with Clark. She was ultimately murdered by classmate Tim Westcott in the season four episode “Pariah.” Of course, while Smallville was a big hit with a huge following when Carter was on the show, the DC TV landscape is completely different now.

“I feel new to it because of [the scale of the Arrowverse], but I also feel like I have a history with the fans, which is kind of special,” Carter told ComicBook.com during an interview in support of tonight’s episode of The Flash, which airs at 8 p.m. ET/PT on The CW. “A lot of people were moved by my character on Smallville, Alicia Baker, and continue to follow me because of it. So, I think for them, it’s a reentrance. For me, I missed the transition into what the DC world has become. It’s new and great.”

Carter joined The Flash in the closing minutes of last week’s episode, revealed as a time-traveling version of Grace Gibbons, the niece of Cicada. Except, with Orlin Dwyer (Chris Klein) having given up his powers, she has now become Cicada herself and taken on her father’s twisted mission of killing as many metahumans as possible.

If you ignore The Mechanic, who never had powers and was not a physical threat to the team, Cicada II marks the first time that any Arrowverse series other than Supergirl has featured a female big bad. That is not lost on Carter, who has spent her career being a professional badass.

“I feel privileged to be the first woman villain bad ass. It’s definitely important to have the most ‘power’ on the show, to be the one that is the biggest threat to The Flash, and have the face off be a woman versus man,” Carter said. “I think it does say something. I love it, and I love Danielle. We worked together on Shark and I would say that she is one of the stronger female characters that’s fully-rounded on the show because she does have the dark side that she taps into and because she was untouchable by Orlin. That makes her a focus for my character, as well. I see her as the biggest threat. That also makes it interesting to have these two powerful women as equals. I think we’re gonna see some play on that in the future.”

The Flash airs on Tuesday nights at 8 p.m. ET/PT on The CW, before episodes of Roswell New Mexico. Tonight’s episode, titled “Time Bomb,” will deal with some other future issues — notably, the relationship between Nora West-Allen and Eobard Thawne (Tom Cavanagh).