Danielle Panabaker Teases a Comedic Turn for The Flash Costar Grant Gustin in “License to Elongate”

This season on The Flash has been a heavy one. With “Crisis on Infinite Earths” rapidly approaching, the series has devoted most of its sixth season thus far to building up for the massive crossover and for good reason. It was revealed early in the season that Not only is Crisis coming far sooner than Team Flash thought — five years sooner, to be exact — but Barry (Grant Gustin) is going to die. He has to. It’s the only outcome out of billions of possibilities in which those he loves survives. That realization and the preparation for this tragic event has cast a somber shadow on things — but tonight’s “License to Elongate” will lighten things up a bit, at least according to series star Danielle Panabaker.

Panabaker, who also directs tonight’s episode, revealed to TV Guide ahead of the episode that “License to Elongate” gives Gustin a chance to lean into comedy in an episode that sees him outside The Flash suit for a bit in a very James Bond-esque adventure with Ralph Dibny (Hartley Sawyer).

“Grant’s so incredibly talented and, particularly this season as they’re preparing for Crisis, we haven’t gotten to see a ton of levity from him,” Panabaker said. “And so to really give him the opportunity… to really lean into the comedy there was, I think, fun for him. There were some stunts that I had not intended for him to do and he got on stage and he was like, ‘Well, can I do that? And I was like, ‘That’s not up to me!’ So you know, I think he was really enjoying himself.”

“License to Elongate” is expected to focus on Ralph Dibny/Elongated Man and how Barry prepares him for a life post-Crisis — a life in which Barry will no longer be there to be a friend and leader. Of course, given Ralph’s work as a private investigator and the lingering mystery surrounding the disappearance of Sue Dearbon it also seems like there will be plenty of James Bond vibes in the episode, something that showrunner Eric Wallace said is all the work of the show’s writers’ room.

“We sit in the writers’ room — we’re the geekiest people in the world, it’s great,” Wallace said. “In fact, there are so many Bond jokes that we had to cut out of the script. It just would have been embarrassing at that point. We kind of said all right, let’s do one or two specific ones.”

The Flash airs Tuesdays at 8/7c on The CW. “License to Elongate” airs November 19.