What's Next for the Arrowverse After The Flash's Final Season?

The CW's tapestry of shows got a pretty surprising update on Monday, when it was confirmed that The Flash will be ending with a thirteen-episode ninth and final season in 2023. This announcement proved to be significant for multiple reasons — it squashed the months-long speculation about the show's long-term future, and it led to a lot of conversation about the Arrowverse, the franchise of interconnected television shows that The Flash was one of the cornerstones of. Depending on who you ask, The Flash was the final show within the Arrowverse's continuity to remain on the air, which begs the question — what's next for the franchise, once The Flash ends?

When the Arrowverse's flagship series, Arrow, came to a close in early 2020, it seemed as if the franchise could still carry on for quite a while. The franchise's own version of the Justice League was established at the tail end of 2020's "Crisis on Infinite Earths" crossover, it seemed as if there was an infinite wealth of narrative potential for each individual show going forward. Due to factors surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as the nature of network television, that potential didn't quite come to pass — both Supergirl and Black Lightning ended their runs with pre-planned final seasons in 2021, and both Batwoman and Legends of Tomorrow were cancelled to the surprise of fans in the spring of 2022. While the Arrowverse still found ways to connect together amid this "new normal", namely through characters from other shows appearing on The Flash in a five-part "Armageddon" event, the universe did not seem as connected as it once had been. The debut of the network's Superman & Lois show, which did not reference any characters or events on previous shows, only complicated things even further.

Fast-forward to 2022, where the four remaining DC shows on The CW are The Flash, Stargirl (which was already established to be on a separate earth at the end of "Crisis"), Superman & Lois, and the upcoming Gotham Knights. Gotham Knights was quickly confirmed to be existing in its own non-Arrowverse pocket of the multiverse, and the Season 2 finale of Superman & Lois also confirmed the same for its own show. This made The Flash the lone remaining show that's definitely within the Arrowverse continuity, and now adds an interesting layer to the show's upcoming final season, as it could very well indicate the end of the majority of Arrowverse storytelling itself.

Of course, that certainly doesn't mean that stories involving the Arrowverse could be completely done — fans have speculated for years that Gustin could cameo in the upcoming The Flash movie (which is currently scheduled to debut a few weeks after the show comes to a close), after previously crossing over with Ezra Miller's version of the character in "Crisis." And while the larger future of DC-inspired storytelling is currently in flux amid the recent Warner Bros. Discovery merger, it would be pretty safe to assume that elements from the Arrowverse could play a role in future multiversal stories down the line. Plus, the Arrowverse has already showed that it could tell new stories outside of live-action television, between various tie-in novels, animated web series like Vixen and Freedom Fighters: The Ray, and the recent Earth-Prime comic miniseries — all avenues that would certainly still exist to tell stories at a later date.

At the moment, the only potential outlier that could keep the Arrowverse going on The CW (unless the network were to decide to develop an additional show between now and The Flash's series finale), is Justice U. Starring and directed by Arrowverse alum David Ramsey, Justice U has been previously billed as a show where Ramsey's John Diggle would recruit five young metahumans to go undercover at a prestigious university, all while helping them train to be the next generation of superheroes. When the show was first announced to be in development in January of this year, fans assumed it would be set within the Arrowverse continuity — but recent events could have complicated that, as Ramsey has now played a definitively different version of Diggle on Superman & Lois. Admittedly, Justice U is not yet guaranteed to be happening on The CW amid the network's own behind-the-scenes changes, despite reportedly still being in development as recently as June of this year. But if the show eventually does come to fruition, it will be interesting to see if it existed within the Arrowverse continuity or the Superman & Lois continuity. If the network chose the former option, it would further follow the version of Diggle that fans best recognize — but it would arguably take some of the magnitude out of The Flash's swan song in the process.

With The Flash's final season premiere still a matter of months away, fans will definitely be curious to see what the Arrowverse's overall future holds. The Flash's farewell could very well be the swan song of the franchise itself — or just the start of a new chapter.

The Flash's final season will debut in early 2023 on The CW.