‘The Flash’ Season 5 to Reportedly Include Rag Doll as a Villain

The Flash season 5 continues to get more exciting, with the announcement that a classic Flash villain is coming to the show.

In a new report, a casting call has been put out for a twenty-something actor to play Peter Merkel, the alter-ego of Rag Doll, a villain that goes all the way back to Golden Age Flash Jay Garrick, in 1942. According to The Hashtag Show, this version of Merkel is described as, “an incredibly emotional damaged criminal who has the power to bend out of shape and fit his whole body into small spaces. As he is enjoying his criminal activities, Team Flash will be challenged by the Rag Doll in shocking ways as his sick plan is revealed.”

That nice little power set could create some genuinely gross body-horror moments for an upcoming episode of The Flash; THS notes that the show could use actual contortionists/dancers for Rag Doll’s physical performance.

In the comics, Merkel started out as a “triple-jointed” crook, pulling heists by hiding himself inside of a large rag doll and being delivered into the homes or stores of unsuspecting targets. Later on, his m.o. expanded to a pattern of crimes involving dolls in some way (thanks to the manipulation by The Thinker). As stated, this classic villain could become something scary if done right by the Flash TV series – which is hopefully the preferred plan, rather than a silly “Golden Age” throwback caricature.

The Flash season 5 will see Barry Allen and Iris West Allen dealing with the fallout of the revelation that their daughter, Nora, has come from the future and may have adversely affected the timeline in the process. That ‘family reunion’ will be especially stressful for Iris, as Candice Patton revealed in an earlier interview:

“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.”

Nora will lead Barry to don his most comic-accurate costume yet, just in time to battle the a new villain named Cicada (Chris Kline). In addition to Rag Doll, other comic book characters appearing in season 5 include the villain Spin, a team-up between Gorilla Grodd and King Shark, and of course, the highly-anticipated introduction of Ruby Rose’s Batwoman, in the next Arrowverse crossover.

The Flash Season 5 will debut on Tuesday, Oct. 9, at 8 p.m. ET on The CW.