After a month-long hiatus, The Flash is finally back — and its newest episode is prompting a fun sort of game of “Six Degrees of Separation” along with it.
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Tonight’s episode of The Flash has a pretty straightforward title, with “Subject 9” referencing the ninth person affected by Clifford DeVoe/The Thinker’s creation of “bus metas”. But the episode title also shares its name with an episode of Fox’s sci-fi series Fringe. Fringe‘s “Subject 9” was the fourth episode of the show’s fourth season, airing in October 2011. The episode saw Olivia (Anna Torv) wanting to track down one of the other test subjects from Walter’s (John Noble) Cortexiphan experiments.
While Walter only knew of the child as “Subject 9”, Olivia quickly uncovered more about the subject: his real name was Cameron James, and he possessed astral projection abilities. And as it turns out, the actor who played James was none other than Black Panther star Chadwick Boseman.
This is a pretty unique, albeit coincidental, parallel, considering the fact that this is the first The Flash episode airing since Black Panther made its record-breaking debut at the box office. This also isn’t the first time that Flash has unintentionally mirrored the goings-on of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, with a recent episode having a weird echo to Ant-Man and the Wasp the very same day that the film’s trailer was released. Still, this connection between Flash, Fringe, and Black Panther feels just weird enough to delight certain fans.
There is also something interesting in this parallel with Fringe, especially considering the Arrowverse’s ties to the cult classic TV series. Quite a few Fringe alums have appeared on the Arrowverse just in this season, with Noble performing multiple roles on Legends of Tomorrow, Kirk Acevedo stepping into a Big Bad role on Arrow, and Mark Valley appearing on Flash‘s “Trial of the Flash” episode.
And on the surface, it appears that The Flash‘s “Subject 9” follows a similar sort of storyline as Fringe‘s, albeit slightly more expedited. The episode will see Team Flash tracking down Izzy Bowin (Miranda MacDougall), a rising country star with the ability to manipulate sound. As Team Flash realizes, Izzy is the ninth “bus meta” to display powers thus far, and they want to protect her before DeVoe gets a chance to hurt her.
What do you think of this unique connection between The Flash, Fringe, and Black Panther? Sound off in the comments below.
The Flash airs Tuesdays at 8/7c on The CW.
