A Physicist Could Be Iris' Last Hope On 'The Flash'

The Flash is messing with time again, and it's led to new hope and a new person for Barry to track down: a scientist who may be able to save Iris from Savitar. Who is Tracy Brand on The Flash? Well, she's the physicist who Barry is going to try to locate in the present. And she's a new character who will be played by Anne Dudek (House Of Cards) for the remainder of The Flash Season 3. She's also in danger from Killer Frost, since she's apparently the number one threat to Savitar.

With plan after plan has been foiled as Barry and his team try to save their friend, it might fall to Tracy — who was able to imprison Savitar in at least one version of the future — to come up with a suitable plan that could not only stop Savitar, but do it in enough time that Iris will be OK, too. Because in the 2024 after Iris dies, it seems that the whole of Team Flash is still suffering. Killer Frost destroyed Cisco's powers and turned him into a cyborg; Wally is catatonic; and Barry has tragic long hair and has moved into the Time Vault, still not over his grief.

Most of the characters on The Flash have at least some small connection to the comics that the series is based on, from obvious connections like the literal adaption of a character to more subtle ones, like the way Harrison Wells has become a combination of several influences over the course of three seasons. There are certainly plenty of scientists in the comics with brains big enough to come up with an idea that could trap Savitar. But the name "Tracy Brand" has never been used by any DC Comics writer before.

But that just makes Tracy more interesting. It's possible, of course, that she's simply an original character. But it's also possible that she could be based on one of the many, many scientists that's in the DC canon — and that who her inspiration is won't become clear until later.

As for specifically female scientists who have worked with the Flash in the comics before, there's just Meena Dhawn, a S.T.A.R. Labs employee who gets powers from the Speed Force, becoming a fellow hero and a love interest. But she doesn't seem directly analogous to Tracy.

According to TVLine, Tracy will be "a smorgasbord of quirky idiosyncrasies," but that doesn't preclude her from being a brilliant scientist. Anyway, her research from the future is so advanced that Barry couldn't even begin to understand what it meant.

Hopefully, Dr. Brand won't need another couple of years before she's able to imprison Savitar. She has to save Iris West, which seems to be the key in preserving the heroism of Team Flash.