‘The Flash’ Will Introduce a New LGBT Character in Season 5

The Flash will introduce a new LGBT character when the show returns for its fifth season.

Announced during The CW series’ panel at San Diego Comic-Con last weekend, there weren’t a lot of details provided about the character, but this won’t be the first LGBT character on the series. Star City Police Captain David Singh (Patrick Sabongui) is openly gay, having married his partner Rob earlier in the series.

It also wasn’t clear if the new LGBT character is a new character that has yet to be announced or is among those fans already know are coming in season five. At SDCC, the only major casting announcement The Flash made was that Chris Klein (American Pie, Election, Oz) would be joining the cast as DC Comics supervillain David Hersh/Cicada, though it was previously announced that Jessica Parker Kennedy would be a series regular for season five as well as Barry (Grant Gustin) and Iris’ (Candice Patton) daughter, Nora Allen.

Since SDCC, some fans have speculated that it might be Nora who is revealed to be the new LGBT character, something that might explain the complicated family dynamic between Iris and Nora. Patton told Entertainment Weekly that Iris and her daughter may not be particularly close, something that the show will explore later in the season.

“Iris is very, very excited and eager to get to know her daughter who’s back from the future.” Patton explained in the interview. “And I think that, as we hinted in the finale last season, that’s kind of met with some coldness from Nora. Which we’ll get into later in the season, why there’s some distance in between the two of them. But it’s been really interesting to play this dynamic of Iris really wanting to enjoy this time with her daughter and figuring out why Nora’s kind of not into that.”

While the idea of Iris being closed minded might be a little bit of a stretch, Norah does come from the future, meaning that the Iris she knows may not be the Iris that fans are familiar with as the future holds a wide array of possibilities for why Iris’ personality may have changed or shifted over time.

It’s also possible that the new LGBT character could come in the form of a villain. Showrunner Todd Helbing told fans that, in addition to Cicada, the show will be bringing in a younger version of the Rogues, giving Team Flash some new bad guys to deal with even as they deal with Nora’s big mistake.

Who do you think the new LGBT character on The Flash will be? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below.

The fifth season of The Flash will debut on Tuesday, October 9th, at 8/7c on The CW.