‘The Flash’ Gets Its First Non-Barry Cast Member

As we all know, the Flash will be coming to at least a pilot and likely a full CW series next year, and it’ll star Grant Gustin as Felicity’s science boyfriend and the Scarlet Speedster. But who else will be on the show? And how will it play with the Flash mythos?

We know at least one character: Detective West, played by Detective Ed Gree, er, Jesse L. Martin. Here’s West’s description, courtesy of The Hollywood Reporter:

Martin will portray Det. West, an honest, blue-collar cop who is a surrogate father to Barry. A soulful, funny and caring father to Iris… West came up through the foster care system and took Barry in after his mother’s slaying and father’s imprisonment. He believes in Barry and supports his efforts to prove his father’s innocence.

So the good news is that The Flash will have at least one experienced actor around, instead of a cast of models, although to be fair Arrow was surprisingly well-cast, to the point where they actually had three breakout cast members. It does, however, mark an odd trend in these shows of an L&O cast member playing a dad; Jamie Sheridan was in Arrow before straight-up blowing his brains out in the pilot.

It’ll be interesting to see where the casting goes from here and what the fan reaction will be. Personally I’m expecting a lot of middle-aged men who should know better start insisting that they’re not racist, they just want absolute faithfulness to the material. That’s always entertaining, especially when the racism slips through anyway.

Via The Hollywood Reporter

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