Tuesday's Season 2 finale of The Flash will hopefully solve some secret identity mysteries and/or get rid of Zoom for good, but as the show sets up its next grand adventure, I have a hunch that fans are going to be watching characters closely for other reasons as well. For example, will Jesse be a speedster on The Flash in Season 3? Actress Violett Beane, who plays Jesse Wells on the CW series, wants Jesse to get her speed just as much as you do.
"That would be really cool," Beane says. "I'm hoping that I get to put on a suit and run!" Unlike Harrison Wells, who was a complete mystery to DC fans when The Flash premiered, his Earth-2 counterpart's daughter has a familiar comic book history that she'll hopefully get to fulfill when the series returns. When Beane was cast on The Flash, the show made no mystery of the fact that she's playing future speedster Jesse Quick.
Personally, I really like the way that The Flash has taken its time with the characters of both Jesse and Wally West. It's a slow burn that I think benefits the series. Fans know that eventually they will be speedsters, so the payoff doesn't need to be a surprise or a shock. Instead, we get to learn who Jesse and Wally are as people before they fulfill their heroic comic book destiny. It's very similar to what The Flash did with Caitlin Snow and Cisco Ramon, who are both known for their superpowers in DC Comics, but started off as normal scientists.
"I think that's a really smart idea," says Beane, "because people want what they can't have — and everyone's wanting all these speedsters to be out there running together. Once that happens, people will be like 'Ah, whatever, they're all running fast.' So it's a really smart way to do things on their end for sure."
In that way, it's fitting that when Beane auditioned for the role, she wasn't even told who the character really was. She auditioned for a girl named "Claire" and learned who Jesse was after being cast. "Once I booked it I was able to do a lot more research," she says, "and I think [playing a well-known character] can be a pretty scary idea but, because the fans are so welcoming, I honestly feel like I have so much freedom in that character."
Still, Jesse's gotta get those powers soon, if for no other reason than because it opens up even more awesome crossover potential. Now that Supergirl has officially moved to The CW, I need all these awesome lady heroes to do a team-up. Look at this race from an issue of the Justice League of America comics that ran in 2010. Don't you want to see Jesse and Kara recreate this on television?
There's definitely so much to look forward to with Jesse Quick on The Flash, which is so exciting. For now, she's an extremely intelligent girl who is forced to navigate an alternate universe with a wacky formed family of meta-humans, scientists, and the Wests. But, like, she's gonna be a speedster in Season 3, right? Please?
Image: Ryan West; Diyah Pere, Katie Yu/The CW
