Ahead of the final season of Superman & Lois, fans of The CW’s Arrowverse got exciting news when it was announced that The Flash star Tom Cavanagh would be guest starring before the DC inspired series ended its run. However, while the actor’s appearance in the series was announced, his role was left a mystery, one that fans have been trying to figure out ever since. Now, in this week’s episode “Sharp Dressed Man”, we finally have the answer — and it’s not a character many would have guessed. Warning: Spoilers for this week’s episode of Superman & Lois beyond this point.
During the episode, Lex Luthor (Michael Cudlitz, who also directed the episode) underwent a bit of image rehab, finally taking on his comics accurate bald head, clean shaven face, and of course, a sharply tailored suit. This was all part of his continued campaign against Lois Lane, however, and he took things one step further by going on a talk show to plead his case against the world’s most famous journalist. That show, it’s called “Godfrey!” and it’s hosted by none other than Godfrey — played by Tom Cavanagh.
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For comics fans, Godfrey might ring a few bells as Glorious Godfrey. Created by Jack Kirby and first debuting in The Forever People #3 in 1971, Glorious Godfrey is a supervillain and is one of the New Gods of Apokolips. Sent to Earth by Darkseid to pave the way for Darkseid’s arrival by spreading divisive rhetoric and unrest, Glorious Godfrey was an evangelist for the Anti-Life equation. On earth, he took on the identity of G. Gordon Godfrey and serves as a talk show host as part of that goal. The character was based on evangelist Billy Graham as well as was influenced by television pitchman Arthur Godfrey.
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The reveal of Cavanagh as Godfrey may be a little bit of a surprise for fans who have theorized that the actor could be playing someone else and perhaps more major — such as Brainiac which we actually get a version of revealed in this episode as well (the episode finally reveals that Lex’s tech guy is Milton Fine, someone fans will recognize as one of the aliases of Brainiac). However, now that we’ve seen Cavanagh as Godfrey, it feels like a natural fit — which is something that series co-showrunner Todd Helbing teased earlier this year, noting at the time that it was as though the character had been created for him all along.
“There’s a lot of cameos, more than any other season I would say, this year. But that came out because it’s a character in the comics and I mean it’s like somebody met Tom Cavanagh, went back in time, created this character and then was like, ‘hey, you guys should cast this guy.’ You know, like that. It was the easiest casting of all time.”
As for Cavanagh, playing Godfrey adds one final character to his tally for The CW’s Arrowverse and Arrowverse adjacent series. The actor has played almost countless versions of Harrison Wells — including Harry Wells, Nash Wells, Serloque Wells, and more — as well as Eobard Thawne/Reverse-Flash and Pariah across Supergirl, Arrow, The Flash, Legends of Tomorrow, and Batwoman and Godfrey simply rounds out his wide range of characters.
“He just like, when we were trying to come up with analogues of who this guy could be, personality-wise, when we started describing him it just felt like we were describing someone Tom could play with his eyes closed, his comic timing and just everything about his energy level. It just felt perfect,” Helbing told ComicBook.
Superman & Lois airs Mondays at 8 p.m. ET on The CW.
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