Development On January 11, 2015,
The Flash was renewed for a second season. With the commencement of production on the season, former
Arrow and
Ugly Betty writer
Gabrielle Stanton was promoted to executive producer and showrunner; after having served as consulting producer and writer on the
first season's finale "Fast Enough". However, it was later reported that series co-creator
Andrew Kreisberg would be returning to sole showrunner duties at an unspecified time. That time was later proved to be at the start of 2016, "Potential Energy", when Stanton was no longer credited as being involved with the show.
Aaron and Todd Helbing also served as the season's showrunners.
Casting Main cast members
Grant Gustin,
Candice Patton,
Danielle Panabaker,
Carlos Valdes and
Jesse L. Martin return from the first season as
Barry Allen / The Flash,
Iris West,
Caitlin Snow,
Cisco Ramon / Vibe and
Joe West, respectively.
Rick Cosnett, a main cast member from season one, did not return as a regular because his character,
Eddie Thawne, died in the season one finale. He instead returned as a guest star in the season premiere "The Man Who Saved Central City" in a dream sequence, and later in the episode "Flash Back", where Barry travels back to a time when Eddie was still alive. Gustin, Patton, Panabaker, Valdes and Martin also portray the Earth-2 versions of their characters in the episode "
Welcome to Earth-2", Discussing the casting of Lonsdale, Kreisberg stated, "Just like when we met Grant [Gustin] for the first time, we instantly knew Keiynan embodied all the heart and courage of a hero. We are so excited to be bringing this much-beloved character onto the show."
Shantel VanSanten appeared in a recurring role as Barry's love interest Patty Spivot. VanSanten's character departed after the mid season premiere. The reason was initially reported as being due to scheduling conflicts with
Shooter; VanSanten later revealed in an interview that she was set to return but "one of the showrunners at the time took a personal disliking to her". In July 2015, it was announced that
Teddy Sears would recur in the role of
Jay Garrick, the Flash of Earth-2. However, later in the season it was revealed that his character was actually
Hunter Zolomon / Zoom posing as Jay. Ryan Handley portrayed Zoom in costume prior to this revelation, while
Tony Todd voiced Zoom. Gustin stated that, around the time of filming the season's ninth episode, "we stopped gluing the mask to my face and switched to a mask that just slipped on and off with a zipper". While Zoom's costume in the comics is a verbatim replica of Eobard Thawne's yellow-and-red
Reverse-Flash costume, the costume seen in the TV series is entirely in black. Kreisberg compared Zoom's appearance to that of the
Marvel Comics character
Venom, saying, "The Zoom outfit is much more organic than the Reverse-Flash suit. In a way, it's hard to tell if it is a suit or alive... There's no skin showing, for all you know there's a robot underneath, or dark energy."
Filming Production on the season began on July 7, 2015, in
Vancouver,
British Columbia, and concluded on April 18, 2016.
Music Composer
Blake Neely returned as the primary composer for the second season. The soundtrack for the second season was released digitally on July 22, 2016 and in CD format on July 26, 2016. Neely also composed a theme when Gustin as Barry appeared on the eighteenth episode of
Supergirl, "Worlds Finest". The theme was titled "World's Finest" when it was released on the
Supergirl: Season 1 soundtrack. All music composed by Blake Neely.
Arrowverse tie-ins In October 2015,
Arrow showrunner
Wendy Mericle revealed that the producers of the
Arrowverse had begun having someone track all the characters and plots used by each series, in order to make sure everything lines up, though Aaron Helbing noted in April 2016 that "sometimes the schedules don't line up exactly...and that stuff is out of our control", such as when Barry is shown using his abilities on
Arrow that month, while not having them the same week on
The Flash. The second season of
The Flash began to explore the concept of the multiverse, by introducing Earth-2, which features
doppelgängers of the inhabitants in the Arrowverse (or Earth-1). In "Welcome to Earth-2" of
The Flash, glimpses of the multiverse are seen, including an image of
Supergirl star
Melissa Benoist as
Supergirl and an image of
John Wesley Shipp as the Flash from the
1990 television series, implying that those two television series exist on alternate Earths to the Arrowverse. The second annual two-way crossover with
Arrow aired on December 1 and 2, 2015, where the Flash and the Green Arrow team up to take on Vandal Savage, who is looking for Kendra Saunders and Carter Hall, the reincarnations of Hawkgirl and Hawkman. Though
Legends of Tomorrow did not have an episode as part of the 2015–16 crossover, the
Arrow and
The Flash episodes from this event did set up a number of characters who star and recur in that series. Screen Rant's Alice Walker discussed how the annual
Arrow/The Flash crossover suffered from also trying to set up Legends, which was "too much to ask from the already crowded storylines and ended up feeling like an exercise in synchronicity, with producers planting more seeds than they could reap. The crossover event was no longer a fun way to contrast the two shows; it now had to serve the much larger purpose of setting up an entirely new world."
Crossover with Supergirl In February 2016, it was announced that Gustin would appear on the eighteenth episode of
Supergirl, with Berlanti and Kreisberg, also
Supergirl executive producers, thanking "the fans and journalists who have kept asking for this to happen. It is our pleasure and hope to create an episode worthy of everyone's enthusiasm and support." While no plot details on the episodes were released at the time, Ross A. Lincoln of
Deadline Hollywood noted that "the in-universe reason" for the crossover was due to Barry's ability to travel to various dimensions, thus implying that
Supergirl exists on an alternate Earth to the Arrowverse in a multiverse. "Welcome to Earth-2" confirmed this, showing an image of Benoist as Supergirl during a sequence where characters travel through that multiverse. In "
Worlds Finest", which aired on CBS on March 28, 2016,
Supergirl is established as being in an alternate universe where the Flash helps Kara fight the Silver Banshee and Livewire in exchange for her help in returning home. The episode title was inspired by the ''
World's Finest Comics series, in which Superman would team up with various other DC superheroes, including the Flash. The events of this episode take place between two moments in the eighteenth episode of The Flash
season two, "Versus Zoom", which aired on April 19, 2016, in which Barry enters and exits a breach while wearing the tachyon device seen in this episode. The crossover required "a lot more logistical trickery" than the usual Arrowverse crossovers due to Gustin filming The Flash
in Vancouver alongside Arrow
and Legends of Tomorrow
, while Supergirl'' is produced in
Los Angeles. The producers chose to use the Flash as the character to crossover, due to his ability to travel between various Earths, and because it was "a little more fun at first to bring the veteran from that show to the chemistry of a new show." Berlanti stated that "in a perfect world", the crossover would have featured both Gustin and Amell's Green Arrow, "but logistically that would have been a nightmare to try and do both shows. We had to facilitate one." Gustin was optimistic that the crossover in 2016 would allow another crossover the following year with the rest of the Arrowverse shows. The crossover episode received excellent reviews. Cliff Wheatley of IGN gave the episode an 8.6/10, stating "After the grim 'n' gritty
Batman v Superman,
Supergirl "Worlds Finest" offered a fun, upbeat palette cleanser and one of the series' strongest episodes to date. Instead of the usual "beatdown" introduction, Supergirl and the Flash went straight to being superfriends, which was refreshing. Not only did Barry Allen fit perfectly in Kara's world, but actors Grant Gustin and Melissa Benoist had fantastic chemistry together onscreen. While the city's turnaround on Supergirl's Red K incident was a little sudden, overall, "Worlds Finest" was delightful." Stacy Glanzman of TV Fanatic gave the episode a 5.0 out of 5 stars. == Marketing ==