If you’re still scratching your head over Henry’s sudden leave of absence on The Flash, you’re not the only one. The cast of the CW series is just as puzzled by Mr. Allen’s hasty exit from his son Barry’s life mere hours after leaving prison.
“First of all, I was shocked that happened that quickly, like a lot of the viewers were. It was like, ‘I’m out! Gotta go!'” star Grant Gustin says.
Jesse L. Martin, who plays Barry’s surrogate and last remaining father figure Joe, is just as perplexed. “I didn’t realize it was a competition!” he says with a laugh. “I’m still grappling with the fact that the dude just left. I don’t get it. You’re finally free to have a relationship with your son, and he felt like he had to leave. I don’t know how much me, Jesse, understands that decision.”
Although Henry is “still a part of [Barry’s] life,” Gustin speculates that the two are “talking less right now than they probably even did when he was in prison.”
From Gustin’s perspective, “Barry was not really understanding why, but trying to just give it to him and be supportive of him needing space, I guess, even though it’s kind of confusing to Barry. He’s not sure if he’s supposed to reach out or not right now, but he’ll be there again when Barry needs him.”
Adds Martin: “Maybe he has things he needs to do with his own life, and Barry’s a grown man — and also a superhero! Maybe he felt that getting out of his way would be a better thing. I still don’t get it, though.”
I still don’t get it. Was so abrupt and out of the blue. Your finally out of prison and the first thing you do is leave your son who’s been with you the entire time.. like how does that make sense.
No matter where he goes, Barry can visit him in 10mins, duh.
We don’t see Barry zip to neighbouring states to save people so I can’t see him visiting his dad.
Well, except for all those times he has crossed over with Arrow going to Star City and even around the world to Nandu Parbat in the Far East.
Yes, Mr. Martin, it’s the Last Father Figure Standing competition – and you’re winning! I love both Henry and Wells, in different capacities of course, but if I had to pick one to keep, I pick Joe. Keep Joe. Joe wins.
Yup. Joe always wins
It had to be some sort of scheduling conflict or personal issue with the actor and creative team. Otherwise, it just wouldn’t make sense.
But the could have written it in a way that he was still around – just off camera, right? SO weird to just have him ditch town.
Exactly.
I feel like he either he got involved in something in prison that he needs to stay away from his crime fighting son and will come up later in the season. Otherwise it could just be that he has so much reacclimating to do after 15 years and he doesn’t want to put pressure on Barry to help him with that when he has so many other things going on.
I kind of understand what the writers were trying to go for, which is that Henry didn’t want to be a distraction to Barry when there were so many important things for him to do as the Flash….. but it would have been cool to at least see that play out over an episode first instead of having him take off almost immediately!
My guess he is the Flash from the 90’s series who has gone crazy and has become Zoom. He left because he hates Barry, and doesn’t want him finding out that he killed his dad and took his place.
I don’t understand why Henry Allen has to leave because he’s been a central figure to the series. It’s going to be so emotional with or without him.
I still think there’s going to be a reason for it. The look between Henry and Joe when Henry was hugging Barry goodbye seemed like there was something else going on but maybe that’s just wishful thinking
It’s comforting to know that the actors are as perplexed as we are, lol.
Or disheartening. The actors should have a sense of why is something going, even if the viewers don’t! If they don’t, it points to bad writing more than anything.
Well, on the Blacklist the Tom Keen actor never knew anything about his character’s backstory, then at the end of the year, he finds out he was a deep cover spy and quasi-evil doer for hire who fell in love with the…etc. The over-controlling production people, whoever made the decision that the actor should know nothing, in order for a “mystery” to remain, messed up in not letting the actor create depth with his subtext. In other words, I’m with you on that.
I feel like it was just a case of bad writing
What if he would have stayed? How would that character be involved in the story?
I get the feeling the writers couldn’t come up with a satisfying answer (for now)
Even if they didn’t want to pay for the actor, there was no reason to put the character on the train. We don’t see Barry’s life 24/7, so we could just assume he’s visiting/helping his dad out off screen between emergencies.
If I was wrongly imprisoned and got out I sure as hell wouldn’t stay in the same area either.
Maybe it’s something like the movie 48 Hours where he has to honor a debt for someone who protected him in prison and now he has to take care of that before he can come back. Maybe he’s just a selfish prick who needs to get laid. Maybe who cares…
Why keep an expensive actor for few lines around when you have no story usage for him?
They didn’t have to have him on screen though. The character didn’t have to leave town, he could have just “been there” and not seen.
Exactly. Like Linda. She was gone for several episodes in a row then boom, she is back S2 ep 2 like she has never been gone. Or they could have just said that he needed to visit his sickly old aunt who has been in a nursing home for 20 years and is near death. And the home is in Florida. Whatever.
I’m stilling hoping that he is Barry Allen from another Universe.
right before he left I was getting the feeling he would tell Barry he had cancer or something and was dying. Just something about how he was talking. Maybe he left to keep it a secret and seek treatment or something?
This is exactly what I was thinking too. He wanted to tell Barry, but realized that it would distract him/keep Barry from doing the things he needs to do as The Flash. This way he can slip away to get treatment/die without putting Barry in jeopardy.
I figured behind the scenes, scheduling conflicts or some disagreement was the reason. On screen, I got the sense they hinted at Henry having some kind of secret. If that’s the case, maybe they should have let the cast in on it….unless they are and are playing dumb to maintain the element of surprise.
They might have made him too interesting, unintentionally. Remember that when Mitchell wrote Gone With the Wind, Melanie was the original main character with Scarlett taking over. Sometimes, you have to whack to stay with an original intent, I’ve found out from fiction writing attempts.
Why not go with the side-track and see where it leads? You can always go back and rewrite. Sometimes when minor characts or unintended stort directions take over a story, you end up with a better story than the one you preconceived.
Shipp was also suddenly jettisoned from “Dawson’s Creek”. Perhaps this was for the same reason?
John Sayles said in the book, “Sayles on Sayles” something about some of his friends losing their jobs on soap operas because they were too good of actors, or some such. He did not elaborate.
I took it as things get complicated.
They really handled the whole thing poorly. Not only was the major driving force of the first season, being Barry freeing his father from prison, abruptly dealt with in a few minutes, but Henry’s departure was poorly scripted.
I don’t know why they didn’t simply have Henry saying that he needed some time to adjust to being out of prison and that he didn’t want to remain in the same town where everyone believed that he was a murderer for almost 20 years. Henry could have said that he was going to spend some time in a remote mountain/beach/desert town and Barry could have pointed out that he’s happy to support his father no matter what and that he’d be able to visit Henry anywhere in the US (and possibly the world) in mere minutes anyway. They could have even agreed to have regular Sunday night dinners. And then Barry could simply reference off-screen meetings with his dad in future episodes.
Instead, Henry not wanting to “distract” Barry from his superheroics, was a lame excuse for leaving Central City. How do Joe, Iris, Caitlin, Cisco, Martin, etc not “distract” Barry from his superheroics? And Henry could have actually supported his son’s career as The Flash since Barry regularly needs medical attention which Henry would surely be better qualified to provide than Caitlin and Cisco.
Another example where they talk around the issue instead of about the issue.
Hoping we get this answered at some point.
He didnt even stay for cake…damn! you know how hard it is to get a cake saying… “Yay! you didnt kill mom and you are free!!!”
I’m hoping there will be a backstory here that says he was approached in prison or just after by a “future” person or a Baddie that explained Barry would be in trouble if Henry stayed in Central City. I hope that is what the writers were thinking.
That makes sense, we’ll see. But, whatever it is it better be GOOD.
I just hope we get a satisfactory explanation at some point–like having to do this because he was threatened, for example. This is the first example I have seen on the show to date of apparently just glaringly bad writing.
They will have to provide an explanation at some point because it’s perplexing otherwise.
I still think that he went away to Starling City …. some how gets involved with the arrow and that is why the Flash is so mad with him in the flash forward! Arrow and Flash can’t always be friends!
IMO, I don’t see a problem. The way I see it, the whole point of The Flash was, Barry Allen being “touched” to become a crime fighter known as Flash and at the same time if he could free his dad from
prison, great. But Henry Allen never was the main point of The Flash. The entire story has to do with Barry Allen (The Flash) not
Henry Allen or PD Chief West.
That’s fine, but Henry is still a character whose motivations should make sense. A man getting out of prison after fifteen years thanks to his son who never gave up on him would not just abandon his son less than a day later. And the show has themes that Henry leaving contradicts. The entire episode’s theme was “you can’t be a hero alone, you need your friends.” And then we’re supposed to also agree that Henry needs to leave because Barry can’t be a hero with his dad around? What?
It didn’t make sense at all from a character perspective and took me out of the finale, since it was obvious they were carting John Wesley Shipp – not Henry – off.