This week on The Flash, our stalwart hero Barry Allen (Grant Gustin) spent the majority of the episode is The Pipeline. The inshow explanation was that the villain of the week used her metatech to disrupt Barry while he was phasing. He had to stay in the Pipeline in order to get himself together.
He could communicate with the team via videolink and read Mick Rory’s erotica. So that happened.
Many a seasoned viewer, however, could guess why he was so separate from the rest of the episode.
Taking to Twitter, series star Danielle Panabaker (who plays Caitlin Snow/Killer Frost) confirmed what we were all suspecting: Gustin had to film “Elseworlds”.
Every year in the lead-up to the crossover, there does tend to be an episode where the eponymous heroes are off-screen for most of the episode in order to film said crossover.
Production schedules! They’re a headache but also super necessary.
Did you wonder why Barry was in the pipeline for most of episode 510? That’s because he was in Gotham finishing up his work on the crossovers while we shot most of that episode! #TheFlash
— Danielle Panabaker (@dpanabaker) January 17, 2019
It was doubly important as well as Gustin had to fly to Chicago in order to film some of the Gotham scenes with Stephen Amell and Melissa Benoist.
So there you have it! A little bit of fun behind-the-scenes news and some smart work-arounds from the writing staff to handle everything.
The Flash airs Tuesdays at 8/7c on the CW.
Bec Heim