The Flash and Black Lightning have motivated plenty of viewers to make positive change in their own lives, and it looks like they will be having a similar sort of mindset with Tuesday’s midterm elections.
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The CW will not be airing new episodes of either DC Comics-inspired show tonight, something that was first confirmed by the network’s listings several weeks back. Instead, The Flash will be re-airing its season five premiere, “Nora”, while Black Lightning will repeat the season two opener “The Book of Consequences: Rise of the Green Light Babies”.
This isn’t the first time that The CW has made this kind of programming switch for Election Day, with The Flash re-airing its Season 3 premiere during the 2016 election. Considering the fact that most people will be tuning in to election coverage – or getting out to vote themselves – during both shows’ time-slots, it makes sense that this shift would happen. In fact, almost all of the major networks are shifting their programming for election night coverage, aside from Fox airing a new episode of The Gifted.
And considering the socially-relevant tone that both The Flash and Black Lightning often bring to TV, it’s safe to assume that they would want their viewers to get out and make change. Both shows’ casts – as well as many other ensembles of The CW shows – have advocated for the “When We All Vote” campaign in recent weeks.
“When we can see each other, then we can see, oh, how much we are the same, and there is that bridge that we can walk over,” Black Lightning producer Mara Brock Akil told reporters earlier this year. “TV chiefs are selecting only one type of person, or two or three types of people. All representation matters in the spirit of, we need to see everybody. We need to also see the groups of people, or the types of people, who are often left out of the narrative. I think that’s why we say, Black representation matters, or LGBTQ, because these groups have been left out. Or characters who are paralyzed. It starts to grow in the fiction. They constantly get left out of the narrative, and we need to bring everybody in the narrative.”
Both The Flash and Black Lightning will return with new episodes the following Tuesday, November 13th. The Flash will air “All Doll’d Up”, an episode that will feature the Arrowverse debut of fan-favorite villain Peter Merkel/Rag Doll (Troy James). Black Lightning will return with “The Book of Blood: Chapter One”, an episode that will apparently see its show’s characters making a “shocking discovery”.
You can check your own registration status and find your nearest polling place by going to the website USA.gov.
