Grant Gustin’s The Flash Did The Smallville Episode Tom Welling Refused To Film & I Couldn’t Be Happier It Happened In The Arrowverse

Grant Gustin’s The Flash ended up doing the Smallville episode Tom Welling said he would not show up on set if filmed, and the Arrowverse handled it better than the Superman prequel series could have. Smallville‘s ten seasons followed Clark Kent’s journey to becoming Superman. It is my favorite live-action Superman project, and Welling’s earnestness in the role made the show pop at a time when superhero TV series were not yet what they would become. Smallville was the show that paved the way for the Arrowverse, DC’s shared universe on TV.

That franchise had Grant Gustin’s The Flash as its longest-running show. The Flash‘s 9 seasons, just like Smallville before it, featured a mix of heavy story episodes and fun one-offs. With over 20 episodes per season, the DC shows had to get creative with their stories, and at times, that veered outside the shows’ usual grounds. A recent reveal has shown that Smallville once decided on a concept that was a bit too much for the series’ leading man, but The Flash would make good on that story years later in a way the other live-action DC series never could.

Tom Welling Revealed The Smallville Episode He Refused To Film

The Superman Actor Was Not A Fan Of A Genre Idea

While other actors would leave the show before its final season, Tom Welling stuck with Smallville until Clark Kent fully became Superman. By the end of season 10, the Smallville star had many exciting superhero battles, romances, and adventures under his belt over a total of 217 episodes. However, the concept of a bottle episode proved itself too bizarre for the actor. Recently, Tom Welling revealed the Smallville episode we refused to film. According to the star, the season 6 episode, “Noir,” originally was meant to be a musical, which Welling opposed.

After being knocked out while an old crime film played in the background, Jimmy Olsen dreamed about a 1940s-set Smallville.

When the idea was brought to him, Welling told the Smallville team, “‘I will not show up to work.’“ Welling’s stance was taken into account, and “Noir” was not a musical. However, the episode was still a major departure from what Smallville fans had grown used to. After being knocked out while an old crime film played in the background, Jimmy Olsen dreamed about a 1940s-set Smallville. The bottle episode had all the makings of a classic noir project, with a mystery at its center, gangsters at every corner, use of black-and-white, and more. Still, it was not a musical.

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The Arrowverse Series Was Open To Experimenting More

After hearing Welling’s comments, I realized that DC must have kept that idea in a drawer somewhere, because it just so turns out that The Flash would come up with its own noir musical years later. Grant Gustin’s The Flash series and the rest of the Arrowverse shows became known for how they had a fair number of bottle episodes, which many fans ended up calling fillers more often than not. However, I always thought there were some genuine jewels found through that concept, and “Duet,” the season 3 noir musical, is one of The Flash‘s most creative hours.

Grant Gustin in The Flash poster and Ezra Miller's Barry Allen looking scared in The Flash (2023)-1

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The episode ended up being a crossover that put Gustin’s the Flash and Melissa Benoist’s Supergirl into a coma where the characters woke up inside a noir musical and had to sing and dance their way back to reality. The cause of the noir reality this time around was not a hit to the head like with Jimmy Olsen in Smallville, but rather the Music Meister. The villain from DC Comics is known for using music as his weapon, and so he was uniquely equipped for a superhero musical in a way that was more cohesive to the story.

I’m Glad The Flash Had The Noir Musical Instead Of Smallville

The Arrowverse Series Was Better Suited For The Concept

I agree with Tom Welling — a noir musical would have been out of place. I am not a fan of the DC show’s episodes that veered too far away from Smallville‘s regular story, with one-offs like the Superman prequel’s vampire, witch, and noir episodes feeling quite odd. Grant Gustin’s The Flash was sillier in that regard, with its status within the Arrowverse giving it more of a comic book feel that translated well to more out-there situations. By bringing in Supergirl, who has a fun friendship with the Flash, the episode was light and sweet.

There are also a few other reasons why The Flash having the noir musical made more sense than Smallville. Between Grant Gustin, Melissa Benoist, Darren Criss, Jeremy Jordan, Jesse L. Martin, and more, The Flash had quite a few talented singers and dancers who had already performed on Broadway or would do so in the following years. The Flash‘s musical episode also changed the show in a huge way. In the end, Barry Allen sang one of my favorite musical songs, “Runnin’ Home To You,” proposing to Iris and showing how The Flash thrived with the episode Smallville never made.