The Flash's Andrew Kreisberg and Tom Cavanagh Tease Tonight's Episode

During a roundtable interview with the press following a screening of tonight's episode of The [...]

By Russ Burlingame

Griffin Grey 001

During a roundtable interview with the press following a screening of tonight's episode of The Flash, executive producer Andrew Kreisberg and series actor Tom Cavanagh both teased what fans can expect from the installment.

Titled "Back to Normal," the episode deals with the fallout from last week's episode, which left Barry without his speed and Caitlin kidnapped by Zoom. Meanwhile, Wally West is starting to wonder just what's up with The Flash showing up at family functions all the time.

"The biggest tease is that Barry and the team are dealing with the fact that Barry doesn't have his powers anymore," Kreisberg told reporters. "We've been at such a break-neck pace. TV scheduling put a couple of arbitrary stops in there, but if you think about it, the Earth-2 saga to King Shark to the trajectory episode to the flashback episode to last week and all of the revelations and Barry losing his speed, we've been pedal to the metal at a break-neck pace. This episode where Barry loses his powers was literally designed to slow everything down and let everybody catch their breath before the next four episodes."

Cavanagh added, "...but the fashion with which we breathe with Barry, as he's going through what he's going through, in my personal opinion, is one of the most inventive things this show has done in the two seasons that I've been involved. I just think the way that that is crafted is brilliant. The way in which we take that breath with Barry, I think people are going to love it. It's something we haven't seen yet, and I think people are going to be extremely gratified."

The episode features Griffin Grey, a villain created by Danny Bilson and Paul DeMeo during their brief run on The Flash: The Fastest Man Alive. Bilson and DeMeo are best known for being the showrunners on 1990's The Flash, which starred John Wesley Shipp, who returns to dispense advice to Barry next week. Grey, for his part, is a bit like some of the Season One villains, in that he gained his powers as a result of the particle accelerator explosion and he's not happy about it. After seeing that "Harrison Wells" is still alive, he decides to kidnap the man he believes to be responsible for his plight.

"With the episode title, 'Back to Normal,' we talked about who would be a good villain for them to go up against," Kreisberg said. "The idea that there was a villain who got the short end of the stick, as far as their powers were concerned, and who had taken Wells, we wanted this episode to have a profound impact on Harry. He was taken in a case of mistaken identity. He tries to rationalize, 'I didn't do anything. I didn't create this guy, so I shouldn't feel bad about it.' But the fact that Harry had his own guilt for what he had done and his own sins to atone for, made Griffin Grey the perfect villain to have grabbed him this week. It's what pushes him to come up with the plan that he comes up with at the end of this episode, which propels the plot forward."

What will it eventually develop into for Wells? And what does it mean for the (currently powerless) Flash? You can check out "Back to Normal" tonight at 8 p.m. ET/PT on The CW.

Trending Now: