The CW’s adaptation of DC Comics classic The Flash has been consistently fun throughout the course of its freshman season. It is, however, in the middle of an extended break, but it will be back just in time for St. Patrick’s Day on March 17. The next episode is titled “Out of Time,” and a slew of new stills from the return have hit the airwaves.

If you’re caught up, you know things are going to get rough for the team from S.T.A.R. Labs. The reality of Dr. Harrison Wells’ (Tom Cavanaugh) intentions, as well as his still-unclear role in the death of Barry Allen’s (Grant Gustin) mother, is getting harder and harder to hide, and it keeps coming closer and closer to the surface. When this truth comes to light, the betrayal is going to be hard for Barry, Caitlin Snow (Danielle Panabaker), and Cisco Ramon (Carlos Valdes) to deal with, as they all look at him through rose-colored glasses.

On March 17, while much of the world will be out getting wasted on green beer and pretending to be a little bit Irish for St. Patrick’s Day, some of us will be sitting in front of our TVs, patiently waiting for the next episode of The CW’s The Flash. Especially after the way last night’s episode ended. Since it’s a while to wait, and we’re going to be gnawing on our fingernails until then, the network has released this extended look at what’s next.

If you’re not caught up, you might want to sit this one out as there might be some spoilers if you aren’t current.

Comic-book superheroes have been ruling the big screen for a while now, with Marvel enjoying an insane run of success at the box office and DC now doing its best to play catch-up. But some of the most entertaining comic adaptations are actually unfolding on the TV front — especially on The CW, where Arrow and The Flash are constructing a shared universe any longtime DC fan should love. Now it looks like the Arrow-verse might be expanding even further in the not-too-distant future, by giving a tiny hero his big moment in the spotlight.

Of course we’re talking about Ray Palmer, aka The Atom. Palmer was introduced earlier this season on Arrow as a scientist/industrialist who takes over Oliver Queen’s former company. And just as Barry Allen/The Flash was introduced on Arrow in the hopes that the character would prove popular enough to support his own show, Palmer (played by former Superman Brandon Routh) is also being groomed for his own potential spinoff once he dons The Atom’s red and blue super-duds. Speaking to THR, Arrow-verse executive producer revealed that very early discussions about an Atom spinoff have already taken place, but it’s a long way from a done deal. Berlanti said:

With the word that Syfy and David S. Goyer are officially developing a TV series focused on Krypton — and on Superman’s grandfather — I’ve been thinking about how DC’s ambitious TV and movie plans could affect each other. Right now, DC is trying both to compete with Marvel’s huge head start at world-building and to set itself apart from Marvel’s “everything is connected” approach. So they’ve gone the opposite direction, with an interlocking movie continuity in the works while DC’s various TV properties unfold in their own separate realities (with the exception, so far, of The CW’s Arrow and The Flash). But what if we could instead have the best of both worlds? Or, more to the point, the best of infinite worlds?

One of the things that made the DC universe so fun over the years was the notion of the “multiverse” — countless parallel worlds, some dramatically different from the core DC universe of “Earth-1,” while others varied only in the smallest of way. I loved seeing Earth-2’s Justice Society — composed of the older “Golden Age” versions of DC’s heroes — teaming up with Earth-1’s Justice League to take down Earth-3’s Crime Syndicate, and that was one of the least nutty things that the multiverse made possible. So why not apply this multiverse idea to the various DC TV and film projects? DC Chief Creative Officer Geoff Johns even hinted such a thing was possible a while back, and the concept is back in play at DC comics right now thanks to Grant Morrison’s Multiversity event. Honestly, the more I think about this, the more I love the idea. So, let’s break down why the notion of a DC movie/TV multiverse has the potential to be amazing.

Christmas is approaching and the TV lineup is getting increasingly bare, with many shows going into hiatus over the holidays. Thankfully The Flash, one of the breakout hits of 2014, is going out in style. Before handing the floor over to that other jovial guy in a red suit, speedster Barry Allen will be facing off against “The Man in the Yellow Suit.” If you’re a long-time Flash fan, or have even just been paying attention this season, you know that can mean only one thing: Reverse Flash!

While DC is frantically assembling the makings of its own big-screen cinematic universe in an attempt to compete with their rivals at Marvel, they’ve already got a tiny version of that unfolding week by week in Arrow and The Flash. And frankly, I’m a lot more enthusiastic about the Arrow-verse than I am about Zack Snyder’s vision of Superman and Batman. This week the promise of that shared continuity between Arrow and The Flash gets the first chance to really stretch its legs, courtesy of a two-part crossover event that airs Tuesday and Wednesday night. In true comic-book form, the two heroes end up fighting each other — because of course they do — but they’ll also team up to stop one of The Flash’s most iconic rogues: Captain Boomerang, played here by Nick Tarabay (Spartacus).

Hopefully this will be just the first of many team-ups for The Arrow and The Flash, but it also could be signs of something even bigger. The Flash has been setting up the introduction of Firestorm for weeks now, and Arrow has been doing the same with Ray Palmer/The Atom. Then there’s that list of supposedly dead victims of the particle accelerator Dr. Wells named last week, most of whom were secret identities for characters such as Atom-Smasher and Elongated Man. Then there’s that rumor that CBS’ Supergirl series might be part of the Arrow-verse as well. By gum, they’ve got the makings of a Justice League there, don’t they? Certainly one I’m more interested in seeing than the one launching off the back of Man of Steel.