Tom Cavanagh Shares His Thoughts on The Flash’s Lasting Legacy (Exclusive)

After nine seasons, The Flash came to an end on The CW last week and with the conclusion of the long-running series, so ended one chapter of live-action superhero television as the network’s Arrowverse also concluded. The Flash was the last remaining series of the network’s interconnected universe of DC shows and while its conclusion has prompted many to reflect on what The Flash‘s legacy will be, series star Tom Cavanagh has a fitting thought about the matter. For Cavanagh, the show’s legacy is simply that it lasted for nine seasons and that fans wanted to invite the show into their homes and time for nine years.

It’s such a good question, and you have to think a little bit about why you can even ask that question that I think has kind of been asked and answered. Which when you think about it, it’s up to others to decide whether we did it well. But if you’ve done it for nine years, certainly people have enjoyed it. You know what I mean?” Cavanagh told ComicBook.com‘s Nicole Drum. “I’ve been a part of so many shows where they’re not going to say, what’s the legacy? You know what I mean? But I think the idea of a show that has received enough support from an audience that allows it to actually be filmed for nine, for almost a decade, that’s just a true privilege to be a part of. It’s a rarity. I think I’ve had job security two or three times in the entirety of my professional career so far, and it’s just… I think one thing I will say about this audience that I seem to run into when I talk to them is it’s not casual.”

He continued, “I’ve been a part of shows like, oh yeah, I’ve seen that. I stopped watching and this and that. And this show seems to have people that are really invested. And when you think about that, Todd Helbing, the showrunner of The Flash, said this to me very early on, he basically said ‘They’re going to give us an hour of their life every week. I feel such a responsibility to not let them down.’ Imagine that. They’re going to invite you into your home, they’re inviting you into your home for a full hour weekly. And so, you owe so much to the people that will do that. And his idea was like, we want the story to be as good as it can and we won’t always succeed, but we want the people that watch this show to know that we don’t take any of this for granted. That we consider it a privilege and a responsibility, and we are out there trying to do our best every time out.”

Tom Cavanagh always knew he’d be back for the series finale.

While it may have been a surprise to fans when it was announced that Cavanagh would return for The Flash series finale as Eobard Thawne/Reverse-Flash, Cavanagh said that he’s always known that, in the end, he’d be back.

“Well, it’s funny, it sort of felt like season one. You hope for a nine-episode run. And so, we came in, Greg Berlanti‘s idea, and I’m him quoting saying to me, ‘I like the show so much, I just want to have season one of Flash DVD on my desk,’” Cavanagh said. “I think the success of Arrow gave us some breathing room going in, but you don’t know. But when we started filming the show and telling the story of season one, you don’t know that the audience is going to come, you don’t know that you’re going to be canceled. And so that story that we told for season one was very T-A-U-T, taut storytelling, I thought. Very good writing. It was Flash versus Reverse-Flash, the audience knows who the villain is, but the show characters don’t, and then it becomes unveiled and then we kill then we kill Cisco. And then Iris falls for Barry, and Barry falls for Iris, and then Flash versus Reverse-Flash and Flash prevails because it’s called The Flash. And now we’re invited back for season two. And so, then you’re like, well, you can’t do that again. You can’t do Flash versus Reverse-Flash, so what will you do? But in those discussions, it became obvious that well Flash will have to end with Reverse-Flash in some fashion.”

He continued, “And so I always knew that I’d be suiting up. And in a strange way, when I decided to leave the show when Carlos Valdes and I left the show in season six, I also knew that Batman needs the Joker. And so, in a strange way, even though I decided to leave, I knew that I would be brought back because Reverse-Flash just wants to blow up Central City and kill Barry now and again. So that’s what happened here in Season 9, and so I understood that that would also happen in the series finale, of course.”

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