‘The Flash’: Jesse L. Martin On Iris West’s Reaction To Learning Barry’s Secret

Jesse L. Martin as Detective Joe West and Candice Patton (The CW)

Iris West found out Barry Allen’s metahuman secret in last week’s “The Flash,” and on Tuesday night, as the show continues, viewers will see she is not pleased she was kept in the dark.

“We will touch on that,” Jesse L. Martin, who plays Det. Joe West (Iris’ dad), told Access Hollywood of Iris’ reaction. “Iris learns the secret, basically. She learns the secret and she didn’t learn it from me or from Barry, so unfortunately, she’s very angry that we did not tell her what was really going.

“And, of course, Joe’s angle was, ‘I was keeping that information secret from you because it would keep you safe,'” Jesse continued of his character’s perspective. “Iris, of course, doesn’t see it that way, so it’s gonna be a big deal to try to get [back into] her good graces… because once Iris is mad, she stays mad for quite a while.”

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How Iris is going to feel when she finds out her dad turned down Eddie’s ask — for her hand in marriage – also hasn’t been explored yet on the show.

“In a normal world, it might be fine, with Joe, for Iris to be with Eddie, but in this world, Joe knows too much and he knows where that relationship might end up because he’s gotten a little peek of the future from Barry, through Harrison Wells, and he knows it won’t end well for either one of them — particularly for Iris, so he has to sort of shut Eddie down,” Jesse said of Joe’s recent Jitters  coffee scene with Eddie. “He doesn’t feel good about it, but it’s what he has to do and he runs the risk of Iris going absolutely nuts on him for doing so.”

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What’s next for Iris now that she’s pieced together the truth about Barry is a big theme of Tuesday’s “The Flash,” but since the episode is called “Grodd Lives” it also means the return of the gorilla, who was affected by the S.T.A.R. Labs particle accelerator explosion. Jesse’s character Joe is central to that plot line, which mean a lot of green screen style work for the actor.

“That was a lot of green screen acting, but it was a hell of a lot of fun, I must say,” Jesse said. “I mean, just having a notion of how giant that creature is, I mean, we did have an actor in a suit and he was definitely the size that you eventually see on the show, so it wasn’t very hard to imagine, in most cases, what you are up against. … In the teaser, they show sort of Grodd doing the alien thing right in my face. That was just to plain air because they couldn’t get in close enough without screwing up the effect, but you’re just sort of using your imagination to the hilt. I mean, that’s what little kids do, that’s what we do.”

“The Flash” continues Tuesday at 8/7c on The CW.

— Jolie Lash