It hasn’t taken long for Emily Kinney to grab new roles. Following a guest stint on Forever, the former Walking Dead actress now looks to be playing a minor villain in an upcoming episode of the CW’s popular superhero drama The Flash. That’s right, Kinney, who is best known for playing the kind and wide-eyed Beth in AMC’s zombie drama, will now get to play a bug-eyed villain on The Flash. The CW has confirmed that Kinney will be playing the Bug-Eyed Bandit.
Fans of the comics might recognize the Bug-Eyed Bandit as a character that was actually introduced in the comic series The Atom, which could make it pretty strange that the character might pop up on The Flash rather than Arrow, which actually features Ray Palmer. However, there is actually a compelling reason that a villain The Atom has dealt with will be popping up on The Flash. In fact, Ray Palmer and Felicity Smoak are actually expected to appear on the upcoming Flash episode “All-Star Team Up,” which will hit the schedule on March 17. Kinney will enter the plot in the Flash episode that will also feature the visiting Starling City characters.
Punk’d Images first caught Emily Kinney on the set of The Flash, and other outlets later reported that Emily Kinney will be joining The Flash in the villainous role. THR calls Kinney's character "narcissistic," noting that she will also be a hacker. Felicity will fight against her in order to "save the life" of Barry Allen, aka The Flash.
Minor Spoilers if you still haven’t caught the midseason finale of The Walking Dead
It’s frequently been tough for Walking Dead characters to nab big roles outside of the AMC universe, but Kinney has quickly signed on for guest starring gigs, including an upcoming role on the procedural Forever. The gig will allow her to play a college student who has signed on for a complicated role-playing game but winds up dead, which is a little crazy, considering the actress was just killed off of The Walking Dead during the midseason finale. Although the Forever gig is likely to be less emotional, it will still be tough to watch her die. Hopefully, playing a villain will give her the chance to avoid an untimely death, for once. Even better, perhaps the gigs will lead her to bigger roles on the big or small screen in the coming months.
We have a few more weeks before Kinney makes her big Flash debut. In the meantime, you can catch new episodes—and villains—on Tuesday nights at 8 p.m. ET.
