‘The Flash’: Carlos Valdes On The Zoom Problem, Dante’s Return

Barry Allen no longer has his speed on “The Flash,” but Harrison Wells has a plan for him to get it back – another particle accelerator explosion.

“There’s so many cons to this idea,” Carlos Valdes, who plays Cisco Ramon, told Access Hollywood of his character’s reaction to the idea. “Barry could get hurt, we could unleash dark matter energies, there’s no way to control the explosion. We don’t know what will happen as a result of that. … It’s just so insane, but at the same time, he’s sort of weighing the ridiculousness of the plan against the practicality of it. There’s no other plan. The team literally has no other plan and they’re backed against a corner so it’s literally just a matter of going with the craziest plan and justifying it by saying, ‘This is just so crazy it just might work.'”

Barry (Grant Gustin) needs his speed to defeat Zoom (Teddy Sears), the Earth 2 villain who, in the last episode, decided he wanted to conquer Earth 1.

“Cisco and the team in general, they’re at a loss for how to deal with such a magnifying and a crazy, overwhelming situation,” Carlos said. “The thing about the team is they come through in the clutch because they can always stay focused. Even though the circumstances are overwhelming, they always have a plan and they always have some protocol to follow, and you can always count on them to have something to do to help ameliorate the situation. But the thing about Zoom that makes things so difficult is Zoom always has a backup plan for our backup plan. It’s like he’s literally 10 steps ahead, just like Reverse Flash was in Season 1, so that’s what’s going to make stopping Zoom so difficult is that he’s always thinking ahead.”

Cisco won’t just have Zoom to deal with. Rupture, the Earth 2 doppelganger of his Earth 1 brother Dante, is on the way, planning to seek justice for his own brother’s death (Reverb). Rupture’s introduction is going to put Cisco in a tough spot. He’ll have to decide whether to tell Dante about what is really going on in the world of Team Flash.

“I think one of the most complicated things about this show is we’re uncovering so many secrets, and not just about Barry’s power and his identity, but also about the existence of Earth 2 and all this stuff, so naturally, I think Cisco’s inclination is to keep this all from his personal world and his family, so then, obviously he’s going to have to overcome the hurdle of should I tell Dante about Earth 2? How do I explain this to him? How do I keep this information from him? How do I protect him?” Carlos said.

Carlos was thrilled to have Nicholas Gonzalez back to play his character brother on the show.

“I love working with Nick. That guy’s amazing and I’ve worked with [him] on so many levels. I think he’s perfectly cast for this role and to be able to play this dynamic again is so fun, and this sort of tempestuous, fraternal relationship that just like never seems to find its happy place,” Carlos said. “And it’s funny because we initially found a resolution in these characters in Episode 116, but that resolution ended up getting cut because the episode ran long, so that actually ended up being a blessing in disguise because now, because of that lack of resolution, we’re able to continue this arc, this story line of two brothers that don’t seem to connect. So it was really fun to be able to extend that and keep playing that — try to find that connection, you know?”

While the drama plays out for a few more weeks on The CW, “The Flash” has wrapped filming for the season, and Carlos has lots of hiatus plans.

READ: ‘The Flash’: Teddy Sears On Playing Zoom

“This hiatus I’m doing a concert at the August Wilson theater where ‘Jersey Boys’ plays. We’re doing this huge concert for somebody from my alma mater who’s retiring,” he said. “I’m arranging a song for that. I’m working on a record right now. The list goes on!”

“The Flash” airs Tuesdays at 8/7c on The CW.