Last season on The Flash, it was Jay Garrick who warned Barry Allen about the threat of Savitar, a self-proclaimed speed god who was a danger to all beings inside and outside of the Speed Force.
Videos by ComicBook.com
While Jay never said as much on screen, and last year’s storyline will not be explored when Shipp returns to the show tonight, the veteran actor told ComicBook.com that he thinks it is likely Garrick already knew the secret of Savitar’s identity — he was a corrupted, alternate future version fo Barry himself — and did not tell Barry.
“t’s not something that they explored,” Shipp said, admitting that he would love to have seen it, but that the show cannot show everything because they only have an hour a week.
“Given earlier episodes, particularly the one that Rachel Talalay directed, the one where he goes too far in the future and he sees Iris being killed he’s grilling me, and he’s saying, ‘Is that gonna happen?’ And I’m hedging, I obviously know what he’s seen,” Shipp added. “So, I have a feeling that Jay on some level knew all along. Was it explored in the writing and the script? No. I don’t think you ever saw Jay’s reaction to that.”
This week’s episode will return something of a status quo, getting Jay past his skepticism over Barry as a new speedster who uses time travel to fix all his problems — but that comes up in tonight’s episode, which centers on a giant bomb about to destroy Central City, Shipp promised after we pointed out that Barry had already run back through time to stop a bomb in his battle against Vandal Savage in season one.
Rather than playing on those same notes, which led to a bit of a darker and more confrontational dynamic between Jay and Barry, Shipp says writer Sterling Gates respects Garrick’s comics canon and wanted to give fans a truly shared speedster adventure.
“It was hard in the diner to be skeptical of him and to play skepticism,” Shipp admitted. “Because John is so fond of Grant, and Henry was always so warm toward Barry, it was hard to reset that temperature to cool. But I think it began to thaw in the episode ‘Into the Speed Force,’ where I take Wally’s place. And I give him my helmet to get out. That’s I think the first time you begin to see a little bit of the warmth that fans responded to in Henry and Barry.”
The Flash airs on Tuesday nights at 8 p.m. ET/PT on The CW.
