Will the Final Season of The Flash Deliver on a Long Held Fan Theory?
When The Flash returns to The CW in February, it does so for a final season. The Scarlet Speedster's race will be run after nine seasons of saving Central City but as Barry Allen (Grant Gustin) makes one more run, fans are hoping that the series will tie up a handful of stories, particularly the "arrival" of at least one of Barry and Iris's (Candice Patton) children with the announcement of a West-Allen pregnancy in the final season — after all, we've already met and love Nora (Jessica Parker Kennedy) and Bart (Jordan Fisher) thanks to Speed Force powered time travel. But there's one other thing that fans have been hoping for since the debut of the series—the arrival of one of the Flash's biggest villains from comics, Cobalt Blue and now, with the series ending, fans are hopeful that a long-held theory about Eddie Thawne could come to fruition.
First, a little backstory since it's been a minute since Season 1. Back when The Flash was first getting started—and really, even when casting was being announced—fans were immediately suspicious that Rick Cosnett's Eddie might be the show's take on Malcolm Thawne/Cobalt Blue, a character in comics who is Barry Allen's twin brother who was taken from Nora Allen at birth and given to Charlene Thawne instead.
A comic book villain origin
In the comics, the doctor who delivered the babies had accidentally killed Charlene's baby and took one of Nora's twins to cover up his error, telling the Allens that one of their twins was stillborn. The Thawnes were con artists, Malcolm had a bad childhood, found out the truth as an adult, ended up jealous of Barry, and ultimately ended up drawing power from a mystical blue flame that would let him steal anything his heart desired and a talisman he channeled his hatred for Barry into, becoming Cobalt Blue. Malcom ends up an ancestor of Eobard Thawne,
What happened on The Flash?
Obviously, that did not happen in the earlier seasons of The Flash. In fact, Season 1 ended with the death of Eddie Thawne and while we've seen Eddie, it's usually been as flashback or as part of time travel into the past—or as a manifestation of Deathstorm in Season 8. However, even though Eddie's seemingly confirmedly dead the end of Season 8 certainly raised some eyebrows. In the season finale, Eobard Thawne (Tom Cavanagh) is finally defeated once and for all when the villain—now supercharged with powers from all the Negative Forces—tries to use too much power and ends up taking himself out. The episode ended with Barry and Iris 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.
Blue crystal not unlike a blue flame talisman? Sounds a bit like Cobalt Blue if you think about and while Wallace didn't directly confirm that fans will finally see their theory come to life in the final season, he did tease that we've seen one of the big bads for Season 9 in that moment—and that deep comic nerds will already know.
"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 told ComicBook.com earlier this year. "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."
How could The Flash final season bring in Cobalt Blue?
So, if that blue crystal is a nod to Cobalt Blue, the only real question is how does Eddie factor into it and there are several ways that could happen, but the most likely is probably something to do with the timeline. We've seen various times over the years where manipulations of the timeline have caused various alterations with major impact and one of the things that Season 8 did but didn't fully resolve involves Nora and Bart and time travel. The season—post-Armageddon—opened with the West-Allen kids going back to 2014 to correct temporal shifts. Their actions in the past may ultimately have had some ripple effects that haven't yet fully played out and certainly leave a space for Eddie's death to be undone or his origin to be different or even for him to simply just reappear. There are a lot of possibilities there that could be explored.
So, what do we officially know about the final season of The Flash?
The official synopsis for the season is as follows: "After defeating the Reverse Flash once and for all, the ninth season of The Flash picks up one week later following their epic battle, and Barry Allen (Grant Gustin) and Iris West-Allen (Candice Patton) are reconnecting and growing closer than ever before. But when a deadly group of Rogues descend on Central City led by a powerful new threat, The Flash and his team — Caitlin Snow (Danielle Panabaker), Meta-Empath Cecile Horton (Danielle Nicolet), the light-powered meta Allegra Garcia (Kayla Compton), brilliant tech-nerd Chester P. Runk (Brandon McKnight) and reformed cryogenics thief Mark Blaine (Jon Cor) — must once again defy impossible odds to save the day. But as The Rogues are defeated, a deadly new adversary rises to challenge Barry Allen's heroic legacy And in their greatest battle yet, Barry and Team Flash will be pushed to their limits in order to save Central City one last time."
The final season of the series will consist of 13 episodes and will debut on Wednesday, February 8, 2023, at 8/7c.
Do you think the final season of The Flash will finally see the arrival of Cobalt Blue? Let us know your thoughts in the comment section.