‘The Flash’ spoilers: Grant Gustin on Barry Allen and a not-so-secret identity

When you look back at the early days of “Arrow,” there was a real effort to keep that secret identity for Oliver Queen a secret for as long as possible. It wasn’t until this season that Laurel Lance figured it out, and really most of his conversations that bridged the two worlds were with John Diggle and Felicity Smoak .. and he was hesitant even to reveal everything to them.

So will “The Flash” follow this model completely? Not exactly. While there are still going to be many people who do not need to know that Barry Allen has powers, he will not make any concentrated effort to hide it from everyone in the early going. Grant Gustin says as much as a part of a new interview with IGN:

“We’re not going to play the same game that they played on Arrow, where it was a secret. There will be some characters that Barry’s specifically trying to keep it from, but his circle – for the most part – is going to know that he’s The Flash.”

Gustin also promised that there would be some crossovers ahead between the two series, though we personally want them kept to a minimum in the early going so that each show can continue to build its own mythology. For example, Oliver already has so much to worry about that trying to cram in Barry could be problematic. Then again, we know that there already reasons for Oliver to be out in Central City at one point, especially given that Moira paid the mother of his child money to disappear outside of Starling. Who knows; maybe she will be in that city somewhere?

Even though there are no public scripts for “The Flash” yet, we’ll have more news as it becomes available.