How The Flash’s Final Episode Left The Speed Force Door Open For Possible Spinoffs
Warning! The following contains spoilers for The Flash series finale "A New World: Part 4." Read at your own risk!
The Flash closed out its nine-season run in a most epic fashion, as Eddie Thawne used his new Cobalt Blue persona to bring back almost all of Barry's greatest rivals in an attempt to kill him once and for all. Fortunately, Team Flash was prepared for the just such a cataclysmic situation, and managed to defeat the villains and save Central City yet again. And while this was the swan song for this particular series, The Flash's finale actually set the stage for a potential follow-up somewhere down the line by introducing a batch of new characters who will now be just as capable of protecting the Arrowverse as Barry Allen, but without necessarily using star Grant Gustin.
CinemaBlend's Adam Holmes penned a tribute to The Flash.
Farewell To The Flash, The TV Show I've Been Covering For Literally My Entire CinemaBlend Career
The series came to its conclusion with Barry holding the infant Nora West-Allen, and telling her that he decided to share and spread the ability to do good for the world by distributing his powers from the Speed Force. The weight of the world doesn't need to squarely rest on his shoulders anymore, at least the part of that weight that required super-speed.
In going this route, The Flash introduced a new set of speedsters that, theoretically, could lead a future spinoff on a platform other than The CW, should DC decide to keep the Arrowverse alive and kicking on Earth-Prime. Here's are the three new characters revealed as the next generation of speedsters, and a bit of what we know about them from DC Comics lore.
Avery Ho
Avery Ho previously appeared in The Flash Season 8 as an intern whom Bart Allen quickly developed a crush on whenever he was time traveling with Nora, although we only knew her then as Avery. Now that we know her last name, and that she'll become a speedster, it seems like the Arrowverse sneakily introduced the Chinese-American speedster who would go on to become The Flash of China in DC Comics.
No word if that'd be her fate within this show's canon, but given her super speed, I can't imagine it would be a rough commute. I'd also like to know if her powers might make a relationship with Bart more viable. Hey, it has to be easier when both people can travel through time for dates!
Max Mercury
Max Mercury is another character who has featured in plenty of DC Comics adventures, but it looks like the man we met in The Flash may be on a different narrative path than the source material's versions. I say that mainly because Mercury's origin story starts in the past, and this character was clearly seen in the present day.
Additionally, Mercury becomes an eventual mentor of Bart Allen on the page, but The Flash already established Jay Garrick in that role in previous seasons. All that said, actor Trevor Carroll looked pretty damned cool in the role, and I'd love to see more of him should a spinoff be announced.
Jess Chambers
Actress Hana Destiny Huggins was introduced as Jess Chambers, one of the newer speedsters of DC Comics. Again, there doesn't seem to be much connection between Jess in The Flash and the comic book counterpart. But then there wasn't that much time to develop the character within this episode.
Even so, it's cool to see yet another speedster in the fold who would be capable of carrying on the show's legacy into the future, if that becomes a possibility. Hey, there's plenty of time to work out the details, as these are just short scenes of regular folks about to get their powers.
Will The Flash Get A Spinoff?
There hasn't been serious talk about a direct spinoff to The Flash outside of Tom Cavanagh's interesting pitch for an Thawne series. For now, the story of DC stories on the Arrowverse's Earth Prime are through, though there's always a possibility that a series like Superman & Lois could use interdimensional travel to bring out another crossover. The good news is that showrunner Eric Wallace at least laid the groundwork for a follow-up should anyone be interested, and that might be the best possible thing to do to set it up for a future.
The Flash is over, but anyonet with a Netflix subscription can binge Seasons 1 through 8 while they wait for Season 9 to hit streaming. Those who are all caught up might want to head over to the 2023 TV schedule and see what else can be picked up now that there's a vacant hour in Wednesday-night primetime.
