Robbie Amell: The Flash‘s Wrinkle on Caitlin’s Reunion With Husband Ronnie Is ‘Pretty Messed-Up!’
The following contains spoilers from the April 13 episode of The CW’s The Flash.
Well, that happy reunion sure took a turn.
This week on The Flash, Caitlin (played by Danielle Panabaker) pulled out all the stops, and even locked horns with Barry and others along the way, as she endeavored to “rescue” late husband Ronnie Raymond (Robbie Amell) from the “black flame” that had entrapped him in some sort of schmience-y limbo state.
In the end, someone appearing to be Ronnie did emerge from the Black Flame, after Team Flash used its umpteenth modification of that plastic-looking cold fusion sphere to effect a change. But later that night, in private with Caitlin, “Ronnie” confessed (OK, gloated) that he is not some resurrection of the man she once loved (who remains very much and forever dead), but in actuality is… Deathstorm. [Cue fiery skull head and goth supersuit.]
“I think it’s pretty messed up that [Caitlin] finally gets her husband back after so many seasons, and he’s not the version that she’s hoping for,” Robbie Amell tells TVLine. “It’s really fun for me, because it’s always a bit more fun to get to be the bad guy — and to put Team Flash through a bit of a wringer. But it’s definitely a bummer for Caitlin.”
Amell, as you can tell, is delighted to break bad for this arc, but the chance to do so was not the only reason he signed on for the encore.
“Would I have come back [as nice Ronnie]? Yes, of course,” he says. “Essentially how it was pitched to me was, ‘This is the final season and we’d love to have you back.’ But whether it was the final season or not, it’s always been based on availability and we’ve been unlucky in the past.” (Amell has been busy with a lead role on Prime Video’s Upload, among other things.) “But this worked out timing-wise, and I was like, ‘Yeah, 100 percent. I’m in.’
“Granted, they’re now doing another season, which I think is great,” Amell added, “but it was really cool to come back and have a bit of gravity to my character. But I would have popped in if it was the lighthearted version as well, with just the flashbacks.”
One good thing about being bad is that, as Deathstorm (and not just appearing in flashbacks with Caitlin), Amell got to work with series lead Grant Gustin as well.
“It’s nice to have some scenes with Grant again, just because I hadn’t seen him in so long,” Amell shared. “A lot of my Deathstorm stuff is [computer graphics] and ADR booth stuff, but it was nice to be on set with him and then bump into the rest of the cast.”
Alas, the character of Deathstorm has no such appreciation for camaraderie, and instead will be foraging for his (gulp!) next meal.
“This thing feeds on pain and anguish, and it’s time to go eat!'” previews Amell with a laugh. “He needs to get stronger, so he needs to feed on pain and anguish — and that’s what he’s going to go find.”
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excluding despero, deathstorm is probably the best villain the show has had in a while, im not saying he or his arc is fantastic but compare it to what we had lately thirteenth chanced thawne, watered down godspeed, overcomplicated forces and overenduring mirror mistress
please someone upload this dude for season 3 already….
I kinda think it’s gunna be canceled. Also season 2 wasn’t very good imo
I hope we get a season 3 . I really enjoyed Season 2. I think it works even better watching it just after Season 1. The two seasons work well together.
My guess this is Deathstrom was made when Ronnie flew into the singularity. Ronnie did really die but the firestorm part of him endured as energy cannot be destroyed mixed with the energy from the singularity created a sentient creature and was released post crisis or during Thawne’s reverse flashpoint. Since it was part of Ronnie its no wonder it knew the things it but it is essentially just a mindless entity that exists only to cause pain and death.
This is almost certainly going to resolve with the real Ronnie back. Likely he and Caitlin will go off into the sunset.
One of the upcoming episode titles mentions a funeral, probably Ronnie’s after a short return. I don’t think they would kill someone AND send Caitlin away in the same arc, especially after losing Cisco and the Wellses so recently.
The call out to Blackest Night that was mentioned by Alegra foreshadowed the Deathstorm reveal as that character was a major part of the Blackest Night comic.
I guessed that it was going to be Deathstorm….But not this Deathstorm. I thought it was going to be Earth 2 Ronnie.
I’m a bit conflicted about this though. I mean, they literally namedropped Blackest Night in the episode, but they can’t exactly have the black lantern corps when there are no lantern corps.
There is a lantern corp in this verse isn’t there? Wasn’t Diggle invited to join? He turned it down but he did say he was asked in one of the DCverse shows, or am I remembering wrong?
He recieved a Green Lantern ring but they never actually show it or outright call it that IIRC. Probably a usage issue like how they couldn’t mention Batman or Superman for a long time.
Unless there’s canon material outside of the Arrowverse shows, or behind the scenes production announcements, there’s no confirmation about anything “Green Lantern” related concerning Diggle. At the end of the “Crisis on Infinite Earths” event near the end of the “Arrow” series run, the audience was shown a glimpse of Oa (Green Lantern Corp. homeworld) with a bunch of Green Lanterns, etc., in one of the universes of the newly created multiverse (not the Earth prime universe). Additionally, at the end of the “Arrow” series finale, Diggle recovered a small container which he saw fall from the sky, and when Diggle opened it, we saw a green glow (but not the actual content of the container). That was definitely a possible Green Lantern tease. But everything Diggle-related in the Arrowverse since then (e.g., “Batwoman”, “Superman & Lois”, “The Flash”) has avoided explicit reference to any Lantern-related developments.
At least no one used the phrase “Leveled up” in this episode.