The Flash: Brandon McKnight on Chester’s Scientific Approach to Love (Exclusive)

While Season 9 of The Flash has seen Team Flash dealing with the loss of beloved teammate Caitlin and the new threat Red Death, one of the heroes has been dealing with a personal battle of sorts as well. For Chester, played by Brandon McKnight, he’s been dealing with matters of the heart. Season 8 of the series saw his friendship with Allegra (Kayla Compton) start to deepen into something more) but never quite cross over, at least not until the Season 9 premiere when, after surviving a nuclear blast, the pair finally kissed, only for Allegra to not want to talk about what had happened between them.

This week, Chester is still trying to sort out where things stand with Allegra even as the threat of Red Death comes to a head and McKnight sat down with ComicBook.com to talk about how this man of science is approaching matters of the heart as well as what fans can look forward to for the character as the series continues its final run.

Nicole Drum, ComicBook.com: Obviously there’s been tension between Chester and Allegra for a minute now and we finally got to see something happen there. Now, there’s all this additional tension. Talk to me about where Chester is at right now heading into this week’s episode. How’s Chester feeling?

Brandon McKnight: Ain’t love a confusing thing? Love is a complicated, complicated thing. And as we’ve seen with Chester before with his romantic endeavors, he’s not that guy that has a lot of success in that department. So, this is one of those situations where I feel like he’s really confused and doesn’t really know exactly how to navigate these waters. I was saying before, I was telling somebody else that Chester is, he is so scientifically minded, and everything he does and everything he has can be broken down to some sort of equation. But he’s also so unapologetically whatever he is at that moment. If he’s happy, he’s extremely happy and he’s showing everybody, until he realizes, “Oh, I’m probably making everybody feel awkward, so let me chill out for a little bit. But I’m so happy.” He’s that guy.

And here he’s in a situation where in the past when he is that guy, it hasn’t worked out for him romantically. And so now he’s trying to be mature and trying to navigate these waters that he hasn’t navigated before, while also understanding that, okay, maybe, you know what, if I’m the way I used to be in these situations, maybe it’s not going to work out for me. So, if there’s confusion here, if there’s something wrong here, I can’t quantify this, I can’t analyze it, maybe I should just pull back a little bit. So, there’s a great deal of fear in him as well with this whole thing. There’s confusion, there’s fear, there’s joy and excitement. So, I think he’s just a little confused. I think he’s just a little confused, as well as everyone else. But there’s reasons behind everything, which I’m glad and happy for everyone to see soon.

One of the things I think is interesting about Chester is, again, he is this very scientific, very smart individual and he is also a very human emotional person. We’ve gotten to see both sides of him. And what I really love with this situation with Allegra is we almost see him applying science to the heart. And I think that’s a really interesting way because I remember, there actually was recently a This American Life, where they had this whole Valentine’s Day episode of is love science or is love luck? And they broke down these different love stories. And I kept thinking about that as I was watching this episode and thinking about Chester’s, his journey with this. And you see him applying both at the same time and I thought that was really cool.

Yeah, but it’s funny because I think about that and I’m like, is he applying a scientific approach to it because that’s naturally what he wants to do, or is he applying science towards it simply to try and understand what’s going on, because he doesn’t? So, he understands the equations, he understands all of those things, but he may not understand love, or the way relationships work and all those things. So maybe he’s just trying to put numbers to it and put equations to it, put theories to it, as a way of trying to understand this thing that he’s afraid of. He’s trying to bring comfort. Where he finds comfort is in the science, so he’s trying to bring comfort to the uncomfortable, to the unknown for him. I like that you picked up on that. That’s amazing.

His relationship with Allegra isn’t the only neat relationship we’re seeing him with this season. I’ve also really enjoyed watching his interactions with Khione. She’s brand new to the team and we haven’t seen a lot of interaction, but I got to say, they are the cutest, the budding friendship they’ve got going on.

I love Chester’s relationship with Khione as well, just because they’re both similar. And like what I was saying before of how Chester is unapologetically himself and he’s very, whatever he’s feeling, whatever he thinks, whatever he’s doing, that’s what you’re seeing on him. There’s not a lot of nuance to his humanity. He just is what he is kind of thing. I find the same thing with Khione, which is where they relate and where I think their buddy buddy relationship and their connection exists and why it exists. But I also believe that they’re complete opposites in terms of Chester’s all numbers and all science and all physics and all these things. Whereas Khione doesn’t care less about any of that, she’s all nature and all spirit and everything with her is fluid with her, whereas with everything with… She’s water and Chester is Legos, or is brick, in a way.

And so, what we’ll see, and what I really love about their relationship, is that they both grow off of each other. Chester starts to think about things a little differently because of Khione and because of her influence. And she also challenges him to, as we’ll see, as their relationship goes, she challenges him to do things. Chester needs no help when it comes to the science of anything, but he does need help when it comes to life and when it comes to understanding and accepting himself and accepting the whole other side of him, and Khione really brings that stuff out of him. And she kind of has that impact on everybody on the team. I’m really excited for everybody to see how her character develops throughout this season and she just has such an impact on everybody. But specifically with Chester, she just really helps him get out of his scientific shell and really start to home in on, oh, who am I as a man? Who am I as a human? And how do I allow myself to experience all of these other things that I can’t put science to?

What’s interesting this week is this is a really emotional episode in a lot of levels. he’s been wanting to have this conversation with Allegra and Allegra’s been the one who’s been no feelings. But she finally, in the wake of this apparent loss of Mark, which is a huge emotional blow to the team with everything they have been through. She comes to him but it’s Chester who puts on the brakes. Talk to me a little bit about that because I was surprised. What’s going through him right at that moment? Why?

Again, he’s trying to apply science to a thing that he doesn’t fully understand. And even though Allegra is making excuses for the reasons why she was making her excuses, with Chester being confused about what the relationship is and what they’re doing and what’s to come of it and stuff like that, I think what she says, and her excuse, when science is applied to it, it actually makes sense for everything that’s going on and for what’s happening, it’s like this isn’t really the time for that kind of thing. That’s not at all what Chester wants, at all, but has to keep himself safe in this uncharted territory, has to protect himself, has to give in to the fear that he’s feeling and the anxiousness that… New love is a confusing thing and there’s always a level of anxiety to it. And then when you’re a person like Chester who has never been very successful in that field, and then you see somebody trying to pull away and trying to pull back, it’s very confusing.

So, I think he’s just, in those moments, he’s letting fear win and using his science to quantify something that’s not really quantifiable by science. Because what Allegra says made sense, there’s a lot of stuff going on right now. Maybe this isn’t the right time to explore this new thing. If we explore it, let’s do it right kind of thing. When really, it’s like, no, he wants to explore it right now, but fear is stopping him, confusion is stopping him, and I think he’d rather hold onto the relationship that they already have than dive into something that’s deeper and greater and bigger and potentially lose everything that they have. So, I think there’s a lot of his reaction and a lot of his choices are fear based, for sure. Well, me too, when I read it, I was like, Chester, what you doing, bro? Come on man. But yeah, definitely separate.

Now, obviously this is the final season of The Flash. I have to ask, when this is all said and done, and when you look back on this series, what is the thing that you were going to take away from The Flash?

There’s no one or short answer to this. There’s just so many experiences. I feel like I, as a human being, have just grown so much. This was my first show as a regular. So just as far as my craft and my professionalism and my etiquette and all those things, have grown so much. But also, how to be gracious as a series regular on a show. You learn just so many things, so many things that fall through my head right now, just learning how to carry myself on set, learning how to carry myself outside of set, understanding the impact that this show has on a lot of people’s lives. This was mine and my little sister’s favorite show when it came out. The Flash is our favorite super hero. So, we’ve watched every episode together and stuff like that. So, knowing what it means to me, and then now being in the position of a person on the show and seeing how it impacts and how it affects so many people’s lives literally around the world. I’ve had people sending me messages from Brazil, from Cairo, from Germany, from all these different places that I’ve never been to, but all these people see me.

So just learning the impact that this stuff has and then also just learning how to carry myself and then just the craft stuff of being an actor and how to get through last minute changes and all of these different things and the weight that our work carries. There’s a lot of people I included. There’s a lot of people that this show means a lot to. So, I’ve grown so much, I’ve just grown so much being on this show for the last three years, and I’ve learned so much. And these are all things that I’m going to take into the next years of my life and apply them and I’m only going to grow off this show. The show is completely changed my life. So, there’s a lot.

And you get to be a superhero forever now.

Yeah, it’s etched in history now. It’s like I’m the first guy to play a live action Chester P. Runk. And I’ve just fallen so in love with the character.

The Flash airs Wednesdays at 8/7c on The CW.