“Breakout” characters can often
come from where viewers of many TV series might least expects them to appear.
At first such a character shows up in one episode, with his or her portrayer
being credited only as a guest role. Then in a later episode of the season the
guest star would return, and his character turns out to be more involved in the
arc than initially thought. The payoff comes when in the following season the
actor is “promoted” to a regular role. That pretty much describes Chester P.
Runk, played by Brandon McKnight, in The CW’s “The Flash.”
Entertainment Weekly tells us that even as season 6 of “The Flash”
on The CW is ongoing, steps are already being taken to chart out the shape of
the immediate future for Barry Allen and his team in the next season. That
includes promoting Brandon McKnight into a show regular for season 7, a big
step up from his initial guesting at the season 6 premiere, plus two more
recurring appearances in later episodes thus far. McKnight portrays Chester P.
Runk, a scientist whose accidental opening of a wormhole in Central City forms
the lead-up to the season’s “Crisis on Infinite Earths” event crossover episode.
Making a character that only
appeared in the one season into a regular cast member in the next one might be
quite the leap, but it does have a good reason. Main supporting cast Carlos
Valdes as tech guy Cisco Ramon has, in the post-Crisis episodes, been busying
himself studying the changes to their Earth-Prime world and the rest of the
multi-verse, essentially taking his leave from Team Flash in those times. At
these points, Runk appears to pick up the slack, but putting his own spin on
the concept of a hero tech support that is a superhero fan.
Before Brandon McKnight gets more
involved in “The Flash” season 7 when it starts filming, he already has another
series to be involved in, the latest adaptation of “The Most Dangerous Game”
being developed by the soon-to-launch mobile video streaming service Quibi,
where he will star opposite Liam Hemsworth. It is not yet known how many more
times he will guest-reprise as Chester Runk in season 6 of “The Flash,” which
airs Tuesdays on The CW, the show resuming March 10 after a one-week break.
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