‘The Flash’ Season 5: How Will Nora’s Arrival Impact Barry And Iris?

Adjusting to parenthood won’t be easy for Barry and Iris in Season 5 of CW’s “The Flash.”

In an interview with Entertainment Weekly, executive producer Todd Helbing said that it will take some time before Barry (Grant Gustin) and Iris (Candice Patton) completely wrap their heads around the fact that their daughter from the future, Nora (Jessica Parker Kennedy), has come to them for help.

“If you can imagine having one of your children showing up who’s already an adult, who’s around the same age as you, it’s gonna be a little weird for them,” Helbing said. “But there’s this huge emotional component [in the Season 4 finale] — Iris makes a comment about how they’re next to have a kid, and then their kid shows up a little sooner than I think either of them were expecting and under quite a bit different circumstances. So it’s going to take a while for them both to get used to her being around. And then on top of it, there’s the complications of all the consequences that are going to come from her going back 30 years.”

Nora’s arrival will also test Barry and Iris’ relationship in new ways. “I think we’re going to play with a lot of the real emotions when you have a child and how that changes your relationship, when you're parents,” Helbing told TV Guide. “My wife and I have gone through this with our two boys, there’s parent you and then there’s you you. There will be parent Barry and parent Iris and then Barry and Iris. Also, the different philosophies of being a parent. When you’re on the same page and when you’re not on the same page and when you figure out that you need to be on the same page to be effective. It’s going to be compounded, this issue, because they’re now parents to an adult. So they didn’t get that learning curve that most parents get.”

Fortunately for Barry and Iris, they have someone like Joe (Jesse L. Martin) who can help them develop their parenting skills. “It’s funny because Joe has raised two kids, and then he was the father of Wally (Keiynan Lonsdale) when he discovered he had a son. He keeps becoming a parent in new ways,” Helbing told TV Guide. “Some of his experiences with Wally, meeting Wally as an adult and how you can step into that role, is certainly going to influence Barry and Iris, but Joe’s going to be dealing with his own version of it at the same time. They’re going to be on two literally different timelines. I think we’ll get a lot of the Joe-Barry, Joe-Iris, ‘Joe Dad Speeches’ as we call them.”

In addition to the challenges that come with being a first-time parent, Barry will also have a hard time deciding what he would like to know from Nora about the future. “[Barry] has to decide what information he wants to get from [Nora] and what he doesn’t, because he knows the ramifications of knowing that stuff too soon,” Helbing told TVInsider.

“The Flash” Season 5 is expected to premiere in October on The CW.