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‘The Flash’ Star Hartley Sawyer Talks Ralph’s Season Four Challenges

Ralph Dibny (Hartley Sawyer) came to The Flash as a disgraced ex-cop whom Barry did not like, and […]

Ralph Dibny (Hartley Sawyer) came to The Flash as a disgraced ex-cop whom Barry did not like, and has slowly built himself up from someone who delights in being a loser to someone who at least attempts to do what is right.

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That is something that will be tested, as he is faced with the reality that The Thinker is after him, since he is one of the so-called “bus metas” which have driven the narrative so far in the show’s fourth season. So how does he deal with it? As we saw this week — not necessarily in the most heroic way possible.

“We will see a little bit this week and then in 16, 17 and all of that and some more episodes. He deals with it in different ways and it gave us a lot of opportunity to develop him with when this threat comes in and he realizes the severity of it,” Sawyer explained to ComicBook.com. “How does he handle it? He doesn’t handle it, at least at first, in this ‘I’m a hero I can take it’ way….I think it’s great because it gave us the opportunity to explore different sides of him and he’ll get some one on one time with some different characters and reveal some more about himself and why he is the way that he is. That he is struggling with it and wants to do the right thing but it’s not the easiest thing in the world.”

Sawyer thinks that Ralph’s reluctance, his occasional cowardice, his ego and womanizing will ultimately make him a more fully realized character once he comes around to being the likable, respectable hero fans know from the comics.

“I don’t think he really believed in other people and therefore didn’t believe in himself,” Sawyer added. “This journey is him finding, I think, some pieces of himself that were there in the past before we ever saw him on The Flash. He was a cop. Even though he planted that evidence, he has always been trying to do the right thing even if it’s not the right way.”

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