The Flash season 4: Do we need Goldberg – John Wesley Shipp scenes?
For starters, we’ve got a lot of affection for Goldberg as someone who used to watch him back when the WCW was a thing — he was one of our favorite wrestlers back during his undefeated stretch. There’s something super-fun about getting a chance to see him on this show — in general, the relationship between wrestling and comic books makes these CW shows perfect venues for some of these performers / athletes. We’ve already seen Cody Rhodes on Arrow, for example, and Adam Copeland a.k.a. Edge played a part on the season 2 premiere of The Flash.
What we like about Goldberg’s character especially at present is that he’s not quite what you would think. For now, he’s forged an emotional connection to Barry as one of his only friends on the inside, a guy who knew his father Henry Allen — Henry saved him at one point using his skill set from being a doctor; as a result of that, Big Sir felt the need to pay that forward and help Barry when he was in trouble. Barry, in turn, then returned the favor once more.
We suppose that it’s possible Big Sir ends up betraying Barry since A) the guy is in prison and B) he is a villain in the comics — for now, though, we enjoy this dynamic. It would also be rather nice to throw in there John Wesley Shipp at some point. For one, it’s another bit of nostalgia and it’s also two-fold at this point — we’re nostalgic for him because of his time as the 1990’s TV Flash, but we’re also nostalgic for him as Barry’s father. It’s been almost two years since the character was killed off by Zoom, and while we know that we’ve seen Shipp since as Earth-3 Jay Garrick, it’s not exactly the same exact thing.
Also, having two performers who we’ve got nostalgia for across the board is pretty sweet.
Related – Preview next week’s all-new The Flash episode
The appeal of bringing Henry back now, even in flashbacks, is to give us a better sense as to what the relationship was between him and Big Sir — also, that’s a chance to allow us to learn even more about how he lived in prison. We know he visited Barry occasionally, but what was his life like beyond that? How many other prisoners did he know that are still behind bars? We know that Shipp is returning to the series this season at some point — this could be the perfect opportunity to bring him back in.
Do you want to see Shipp and Bill Goldberg working together on The Flash? Share some of your thoughts in the comments! Also, like CarterMatt on Facebook to get even more The Flash insight. (Photo: The CW.)