WARNING: The following contains major spoilers for "The One With the Nineties," the latest episode of The Flash Season 7.
Chester P. Runk just received an incredible -- albeit unintentional -- gift: more time with his late father. In "The One With the Nineties," the latest episode of The Flash, Chester and Cisco were accidentally pulled back in time to the year 1998. There, they ran into Chester's father on the day before he died. When their mission forced him to reconnect with his father, Chester found his eyes opened to the care and love his father had for him, which eventually gave him the confidence he needed to stop the man behind the time loop.
Speaking to CBR, The Flash star Brandon McKnight explained why the scene between Chester and his father was just as important to him as it was to his character. He described the challenges of bringing "happy-go-lucky" Chester down to Earth, as well as how he aimed to give the character "a real moment" on "a deeper level." He broke down the link between this scene with Chester's father and the final battle with Dion and why he was "so happy" to do it. He also teased Chester's importance to the team moving forward, whether or not his powers will resurface, his dream story arc for the character and more.
CBR: What was your favorite moment or scene from the episode, and why?
Brandon McKnight: The scene between Chester and his father, because I feel like that scene holds weight, not just for the character, and not just for the show, but for a lot of what it is to be Black man who's a father, especially at the time that Chester's father was coming up, and to be a Black child being raised by a Black father, and why certain things have to be what -- you know, the whole tough love thing and why that's so important as a Black person living on this planet.
That scene with his father really showed a different side of Chester. Was that intimidating for you? How did you set out to approach that?
The difficulty for me with that scene came in the form of -- you know, everything about Chester is always happy. If you were to make positivity and happiness into human form, it would be Chester, you know what I mean? Without that scene, you wouldn't really believe Chester was capable of being sad or upset or challenged in that way. So that was the challenge for me: how do I bring this character, who's so high on life, down to a ground level, where he's actually going through some real stuff and actually trying to figure something out, while at the same time trying to carry the weight of not being able to destroy the timeline that he's in and mess everything up!
So he still has to do everything in a covert fashion, but also have this real moment with this man who has always been this one thing to him, but now he's discovering was a completely other thing that he wasn't even smart enough or aware enough to understand. So it's just bringing Chester down to a deeper level, and having a real, real moment was the main challenge for it.
To be honest with you, it was just a matter of like bringing myself down. It was just a matter of putting my feet on the floor, figuratively speaking, to do that scene and to make it believable, or at least I hope it was believable. Those were the challenges.
This week, we also got to see Chester step up and become the big hero of the episode. What did that mean to you?
I loved it so much. Again, Chester is just this big kid and now he's working at STAR Labs. You know, the world is ending every week, so you got to get used to being more confident and really stepping up and going through the things that Chester goes through in this episode.
I feel like it's just the perfect arc for him, where he realizes so much of who he is was tied to this man that he thought he didn't have any good relationship with this man who he thought didn't care about him and now having that reinforcement, realizing, "Oh my God, everything that I am is from the love of this man who I didn't think cared about me. I'm capable of so much." Like, "This man had to be so tough to do these things and so tough to try to build the life for me that he's built. I have that toughness in me too. I have an intelligence in me. I have all the things that he's given me without me even realizing that. I must have his toughness as well."
So those moments -- it's just a perfect moment from that father scene all the way to that end scene with Dion. One scene cannot exist without the other, I felt like. Just seeing that arc and seeing Chester being able to stand his ground in the face of probably one of the scariest villains the show's ever seen and stepping up and really appealing to that emotional side of things and doing this whole Barry Allen thing where he talks people down. I just think it was brilliant. I think it worked so well and I was so happy to read it and so, so happy to do it.
In the comics and as established at the start of Season 6, Chester does have a few powers of his own. Is that something we'll see Season 7 explore?
Chester is going to be a very big part of the team, and he's going to go through a lot more changes in the future. As for powers, we're just gonna have to wait and see, but he does get into some stuff that's definitely going to help the team out. That's as far as I can answer that one.
What would be your dream story arc for Chester?
I would love to see the story arc that's closer to the comics of him struggling with his powers, because from what I remember reading in the comic books, he's not really a villain, but he does bad things in order to keep himself from being consumed by his own abilities. I just love that duality of the literal inner struggle of having to do what you have to do in order to survive, and then seeing that flip and turn into the thing that makes him successful, where he becomes the waste removal for the world or something like that.
So I would love to see that arc, where Chester does get his powers and he does realize, "Oh, in order for me to satiate this hunger or whatever, in order to not be hungry anymore, I have to consume all these heavy metals and do all these things!" and then have Flash or whoever come and help me through that entire process. I think that would be incredible to see and incredible to do.
The Flash stars Grant Gustin, Candice Patton, Jesse L. Martin, Danielle Panabaker, Carlos Valdes and Tom Cavanagh. New episodes air Tuesdays at 8 p.m. ET/PT on The CW.
0 Comments