Arrow Preview: “The Scientist” [INTERVIEW w/ Arrow EPs and Grant Gustin] 

The Arrow two-part mid-season finale starts tonight on the CW. While we’re not going to give anything away, just know this show continues to surprise, stun, shock and make us genuinely happy and other emotions we can’t divulge just yet.

One thing we can talk about is the fact that Barry Allen makes his debut in “The Scientist.” Yes, the man who will be The Flash visits Starling City and he will have a lot of interaction with our favorite Arrow players, Oliver, Diggle and Felicity.

Synopsis for “The Scientist”: 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 somthing that happened on the island. Meanwhile, Felicity takes a liking to Barry, which doesn’t go unnoticed by Oliver. Sin 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 and their search ultimately gets one of them seriously injured.

We can’t rave enough about Arrow season two. However, the next two episodes will ensure one thing: a very painful winter hiatus. There is so much that actually goes down and is revealed that it’s the best way possible to end the first half of the season.

TV Goodness was part of a Q&A with the Arrow EPs (Greg Berlanti, Andrew Kreisberg, Geoff Johns) as well as the new kid on the block, Grant Gustin, who plays Barry Allen/The Flash.

Here’s a little bit of what they had to say about the guy who just “sped” into town and after next week’s episode, he’ll speed into your hearts, too. Trust us.

Andrew Kreisberg: Barry comes to Starling City because there is an unexplained robbery at Queen Consolidated. And Barry is very interested in the unexplained for reasons you will find out over the course of these two episodes. He’s the opposite of Oliver in a lot of ways. Barry’s sort of outgoing and funny and a little bit unsure of himself. And smart and a sort of squeaky wheel. And the contrast between Stephen [Amell] and Grant [Gustin] is both comical and fun. And has been really great to watch.

While Grant’s a big Superman fan, it didn’t take him long to start loving Barry Allen.

Grant Gustin: I immediately thought he was really funny and endearing and I hadn’t done anything like that. And I had a lot of fun with that just throughout the audition process. They kind of started steering me in that direction immediately as soon as I met them. And just to have fun with it. I kind of took it from there, I guess.

The Glee alum’s relishing playing such a nice, likable, fun character.

Grant: I would be his friend. I haven’t had the opportunity to play a character that I would enjoy spending time with. So that’s nice.

The executive producers purposely went with a younger-looking Barry/Flash and the show doesn’t shy away from referencing Gustin’s boyish good looks.

Andrew: You know, we’d always sort of seen him as being a little bit younger. And the thing that was really important to us more than anything was that he really should be a contrast to Oliver. And to Stephen. And Stephen is more of the traditional square-jawed muscle bound hero and that works really well because he needs all that. And one of the things about The Flash is he’s a random guy that gets struck by lightning. He needs the bolt of lightning to be a hero in a way [Oliver] doesn’t need the bolt of lightning.

Geoff Johns: The cool thing though is the contrast. Stephen needs the heart. Barry has the heart. Stephen has the body. Barry needs the body.

Grant is everything the EPs wanted in a Barry Allen, which is key, because they’re set to shoot a pilot with hopes of a spot on next season’s CW fall schedule.

Geoff: Grant as an actor has brought more to Barry Allen than I think we’ve seen before. Especially seeing him in the days of when he’s taking his first steps. But he’s got that heart, he’s got humor, he’s got compassion. Barry was always that nice guy. He’s the guy that stops and makes sure everyone’s all right and then keeps going. And Grant embodies that. He’s the perfect Flash.

Greg Berlanti: We were looking, for us, someone who was the essence of the character. And in addition, you’re looking for someone who fits into the Arrow universe we have but still kind of can really potentially have the promise of their own universe and their own show. And had we not found Grant, I’m not sure we would have done the character. We looked at everybody. And certainly the largest search I’ve ever been part of for a TV show, and he was just the part. And suddenly it didn’t become about age. It didn’t become about any of those other things other than that wow, if I were a kid and I got to watch the living embodiment of The Flash, this is who I would want to see do it. And so that’s our hope with these episodes is that when people watch them, before he’s become The Flash, that they connect with him the way we did.

We’ll have more from this Q&A before and after next week’s finale. Until then, Arrow “The Scientist” airs tonight at 8/7c on the CW.