One of the nice touches of the upcoming Flash series on the CW is the fact that John Wesley Shipp, who played the Flash in the 1990 TV series, has a role. Although the trailer hinted at it, it wasn’t entirely clear what he was doing. Now, the CW has gone ahead and made it official.
Here’s what Greg Berlanti, the executive producer, stated to Bleeding Cool:
Given his history with The Flash, [executive producers] Andrew [Kreisberg], Geoff [Johns] and I could only think of one person we wanted to play Barry’s father and that was John Wesley Shipp. He gives a fantastic and emotional performance in the pilot and we are looking forward to his presence in many more episodes. Also, personally, it was just wonderful to work with him again since my days at Dawson’s Creek. He’s a great actor and a great guy.
What, no love for Max Mercury or Johnny Quick? Weak.
Joking aside, Barry’s dad is a slightly more compelling character than you might think. In the current continuity, Mr. Allen is in jail for having supposedly killed his wife, something that the trailer tells us is really the result of Reverse-Flash being Reverse-Flash. At least he didn’t stuff Barry’s mom in the fridge. Barry tries to piece together the case and figure out who might really be responsible, and considering Reverse-Flash has already been cast, we can kind of see where this one’s going. Now if we can just get Julio and Tina McGee in there somehow…