The Flash: Things You Might Have Missed In “The Runaway Dinosaur”

Tonight on The Flash, Barry traveled back from the Speed Force to reclaim the mantle of The Flash — but not before we got glimpses of a possible super-powered future for at least one of the other characters at S.T.A.R. Labs.

Along the way, Team Flash faced down a familiar menace while trying to save both Barry, and the teens hit with the particle accelerator wave at the end of last episode (Wally and Jesse).

So…what little Easter eggs, DC Comics references, and other winks and nods did we see? What did we miss?

Read on, and comment below.

HELBING

Aaron and Todd Helbing, executive producers on The Flash, seem to have planted their own name (or perhaps that’s their father’s name in its entirety?) on The Runaway Dinosaur, Barry’s children’s book of choice.

GIRDER

Reprising his role as Girder from Season One, Greg Finley returns to play an undead version of his former villainous self.

Of course, there will be those who liken his return to the zombie superheroes and villains of Blackest Night, but that’s hardly an equivalent comparison since those weren’t REALLY zombies.

What I want to know is whether they actually set up a morgue for this scene, or whether they went across the lot to iZombie‘s morgue…which would be an ironic place for a zombie attack.

THE WALKING DEAD

Cisco, alwys the pop culture junky on the show, name-checks The Walking Dead when they see zombie Girder running around.

What’s really interesting is: is Cisco a fan of the comics? or does the TV version of The Walking Dead exist in the world of The Flash?

And if the TV show exists, does Beth bear a REALLY striking resemblance to the Bug-Eyed Bandit?

JAY MEWES

Jason Mewes is a longtime friend of Kevin Smith’s who has appeared in almost everything Smith has ever directed.

In this episode, executive producers wrote a part for Mewes, which Smith nearly cut out because he wanted to make sure the episode felt like an episode of The Flash, not like one of his projects.

You can actually see him twice — once here in this scene where his car is trashed and stolen outside of Big Belly Burger and once at the very end of the eipsode — where he appears in the crowd of Zoom’s villains, dressed head to toe so he’s not visibly Mewes.

IRIS AS THE ANCHOR

In the comics, Iris has often been Barry’s “anchor,” the thing that brings him home. Not only does she literally bring him home in this episode, but in dialogue he later says something to the effect that he knows he’ll always come back to her.

NORA ALLEN’S GRAVE

In our interview with Kevin Smith earlier this week, he told us that he took a photo of Nora Allen’s grave and sent it to Geoff Johns, who created the backstory of her murder in The Flash: Rebirth. Here’s the shot.