When originally announced, The CW’s upcoming TV series based on The Flash would begin as a ‘backdoor pilot’ on their hit series Arrow, where actor Grant Gustin would appear as Barry Allen before spinning off into his own TV series. Now those plans have changed. Deadline is reporting that the Scarlet Speedster will receive a traditional pilot instead of having an entire episode of Arrow dedicated to his origins. This decision comes after early cuts of his first two episodes, 8 and 9 in Arrow‘s new season, were well received by the CW brass.
Arrow co-creators Greg Berlanti and Andrew Kreisberg along with Geoff Johns will still write the pilot episode with Arrow pilot director David Nutter at the helm. It’s not known when the series will air, but a mid-season debut has been rumored should the series be picked up.
Gustin will first appear as Barry Allen in the eighth episode of Arrow which is titled “The Scientist.” Set to air December 4th, the episode is described as follows:
“A seemingly impossible robbery at Queen Consolidated’s Applied Sciences Division brings Central City police scientist Barry Allen (guest star Grant Gustin) to town. Citing a similar case back home, Barry offers to help Oliver and team with the investigation. Oliver senses there is more to Barry than meets the eye, but he’s distracted by the similarities between this current case and something that happened on the island. Meanwhile, Felicity takes a liking to Barry, which doesn’t go unnoticed by Oliver. Sin (guest star Bex Taylor-Klaus) asks Roy for help when a friend of hers goes missing. Roy is surprised when Thea not only encourages him to help, but joins the search. Unfortunately, Sin’s friend is connected to Brother Blood (guest star Kevin Alejandro), and their search ultimately gets one of them seriously injured.”
