Wednesday night’s Season 8 finale of The Flash wrapped up The CW series’ season long plots in a huge way and saw some big changes for the longest running Arrowverse series. As promised previously, the season ended well for the heroes while the villains got their comeuppance, but the episode also offered a few clues at what fans can expect in Season 9 — including what might be a tease at next season’s Big Bad. We talked with showrunner Eric Wallace about that tease, as well as other threats coming up for Team Flash.
Warning: spoilers for the Season 8 finale of The Flash, “Negative, Part Two”, below.
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In the season finale, Thawne (Tom Cavanagh) is finally defeated once and for all when the villain — now supercharged with powers from all of the Negative Forces — tries to use too much power and ends up taking himself out. The episode ends with Barry (Grant Gustin) and Iris (Candice Patton) reunited and reflecting on events, wondering who the Negative Forces will pick as their avatar next — and when. Viewers then get a glimpse of a lab in 2049 where a mysterious blue crystal suddenly lights up.
For fans of The Flash, that seems an awful lot like a tease for Cobalt Blue, a villain that they’ve been asking for since the show’s debut, but in speaking with ComicBook.com, Wallace didn’t give away any spoilers and suggested that the deep comics nerds might be able to figure out what they’re teasing — but if not, that’s fine. He wants it to be a surprise.
“I can tell you this. I guess you’ve seen one of the big bads for next year, haven’t you? We showed you right there at the end I’ll let you figure it out,” Wallace said. “I would say if you’re a deep, insanely comic-nerdy person and you do all your research, you probably have at least an idea of what’s coming. But that’s okay if you don’t, because you want the audience to be surprised and that’s something to look forward to. But we’ll continue our graphic novel format next year. There’ll be at least two big bads. I don’t know how many episodes I have next year, so I don’t know how many I can fit in, but at least one of those graphic novels will center around that crystal you see at the end of this episode.”
Yes, Wallace noted that there would be at least two big bads next season. And in the recent Earth-Prime comics, one big bad was teased in the final moments of Earth-Prime #6 when it was revealed that Bloodwork had escaped. Wallace wouldn’t offer any specific spoilers about that, either, but he did confirm that those comics are in fact canon.
“I will say this, because I don’t like to give away spoilers,” he said. “The comic books are canon so whatever they tell you must be the truth. In correlation to that, me and Sendhil [Ramamurthy] were talking about tennis a couple of months ago. We both love tennis and Wimbledon. So, who knows what Season 9 could bring? Wink, wink, nudge, nudge.”
But when it comes to The Flash‘s longest running foe, Wallace did confirm that this death is one that will stick, even if the series would love to have Cavanagh come back in some capacity next season.
“We had to go, ‘Oh, oops, oh. Hey, he’s super dead. How do we come back from this?’” I have no idea, to be honest with you. I’m not going to worry about it, it made for a good ending,” Wallace said. “We’re going to take a break. We will have some new villains next year. The question is, will Tom ever be the Reverse Flash on our show again? I don’t know, man, because just like Frost, the Reverse Flash of a negative Reverse Flash that he became, they are truly dead. But having said that, I can’t imagine a season of The Flash without just a little bit of the awesomeness that Tom Cavanagh brings, in some capacity.”
The Flash will return for Season 9 in 2023.
Do you think that Cobalt Blue will be the Season 9 big bad? Let us know your thoughts in the comments!
