‘The Flash’ Season 4: EP Talks Iris’ New Role At S.T.A.R. Labs

“The Flash” executive producer Todd Helbing said that Iris’ new role at S.T.A.R. Labs in Season 4 of the CW series allows the character to act on her own behalf more than ever.

“Making her the team leader, which unfortunately didn’t occur to us until this season, has really given her the agency on the show that she hasn’t always had,” Helbing told Entertainment Weekly of Iris (Candice Patton). “She’s always been smart, and funny, and proud, and brave, and eager, but she didn’t always have the authority that she has this season. It’s really nice to see her making decisions, and telling people where to go, and what to do, and Candice has really risen to the challenge, as we knew that she would.”

Although Helbing thinks that Barry (Grant Gustin) “loves” the fact that Iris is now leading the charge, the exec producer said that the Scarlet Speedster needs some time to adjust with this brand new dynamic with his fiancée.

“It’s a new dynamic that he’s walking into, so there’s a big learning curve,” Helbing told TVLine of how Barry will adapt to this new setup.” It’s not just Cisco (Carlos Valdes) and Wells (Tom Cavanagh) behind the command station, it’s the woman he loves. It’s going to take a bit of time for him to get used to that.”

Helbing said that fans will see this new dynamic between the future husband and wife in Season 4, episode 2. “It’s a lot of fun in episode 2,” the exec producer said. “Barry and Iris keep comically clashing inadvertently because she’s used to being in charge, and he’s used to being in charge, and so they wind up going to couples therapy to work through it. The two of them with the therapist is some of the funniest stuff we have ever done on this show, but it also leads to a deepening of their relationship.”

In a featurette teasing the upcoming season, executive producer Andrew Kreisberg said that changing the show’s tone has always been part of their plan for Season 4. “Last season got really dark, and [that’s] on purpose. We wanted to do that,” Kreisberg said in the video. “But it was this darky dark, ‘Donnie Darko’ dark … so this year, since we feel we kind of did that, we’re not gonna out dark ourselves. We really wanted to sort of like pivot and lean on to fun and light and brightness.”

“The title premiere is actually ‘The Flash Reborn,’” Kreisberg continued. “And for us, it’s sort of a restart, just diving into more comedy and more fun and more brightness and more excitement and sort of getting away from [heavy] drama we were playing last season.”

“The Flash” Season 4 premieres on Tuesday, Oct. 10 at 8 p.m. EDT on The CW.