‘The Flash’: Candice Patton on Iris Becoming a Mother in Season 5

Iris West-Allen got the surprise of her life in the fourth season finale of The Flash when the “Mystery Girl” revealed herself to be Nora Allen, hers and Barry’s daughter from the future. However, it sounds like this unexpected and unconventional foray into motherhood is one that Iris will face with a combination of questions and mama bear tendencies.

Speaking with ComicBook.com at San Diego Comic-Con back in July, Candice Patton explained that the challenge of playing a mother is one that she enjoys, but that has given Iris all sorts of questions — especially considering that Nora (Jessica Parker Kennedy) is an adult from the future.

“Well, I mean just for me as an actor it’s always nice to do something new which is something our show affords each of us there’s always something interesting and new and different to play with every season, but for Iris yeah, it’s facing this idea that you’ve got a daughter from the future who has come back to visit you and why?” Patton said. “Why would she be back? And the strange thing is that she’s very much in love with her father and she has some tension with her mother which Iris doesn’t really understand or doesn’t really get why.”

The idea that Nora and Barry (Grant Gustin) will be closer than Nora and Iris is one that Patton has mentioned before, explaining in an interview last month that there is some coldness from Nora when it comes to Iris. However, Patton told ComicBook.com that it isn’t going to prevent her from being “100-percent” a mama bear, especially with Nora turns out to be just like her father heroically-speaking.

“She’s just like her father, they both want to be in the middle and the thick of any problem that is going on which is obviously going to make Iris very maternal and nervous so there’s going to be some conflict there of Iris having to deal two loves of her life putting themselves in danger constantly,” Patton said.

Hopefully, Iris and Nora will find a way to forge a relationship — and balance Iris’ inner mama bear — sooner rather than later. Jessica Parker Kennedy recently told Newsarama that the reason why there’s distance between Nora and Iris will be revealed early on.

“Something has obviously happened for me to feel much closer to my father than my mother,” Kennedy said. “It’s something you’ll find out relatively early on in the season.”

The fifth season of The Flash will debut on Tuesday, October 9th, at 8/7c on The CW.