UPDATE: The Nerds of Color have issued a correction over the statement which incorrectly quoted that "All the Legends [of Tomorrow] at least are all going to appear in an episode.” There is no confirmation that all of the Legends will appear in The Flash Season 9. The original article continues below.
Debuting in September 2014, a little less than a year after Grant Gustin debuted as Barry Allen in Arrow Season 2, The Flash is about to enter its ninth and final season. The longest-running (pun slightly intended) of the Arrowverse shows will wrap things up with 13 episodes, and there have already been plenty of big casting announcements for this last hurrah. The Flash showrunner Eric Wallace has now revealed that the Legends of Tomorrow will also be involved in Season 9, as well as some Justice League plans he’d formulated for a Blackest Night storyline that ended up being scrapped.
Starting with the Legends of Tomorrow, Arrowverse fans will remember that the show following the Waverider’s crew was cancelled last year after seven seasons, resulting in the show ending with a cliffhanger that introduced Donald Faison as Booster Gold. The good news is that Eric Wallace shared with The Nerds of Color that “all the Legends at least are all going to appear in an episode” of The Flash Season 9. The bad news is that Wallace and the The Flash’s team had to toss aside plans to give Legends of Tomorrow a proper conclusion in Season 9. In his words:
There was originally when I had hoped that we’d had 20 episodes, but my original concept was to have at least one — if not a two parter — that wrapped up Legends of Tomorrow. And you know, there will be a little crossover we get them back, we get them out of time jail, all these good things, Booster Gold, etc, etc. When we found out we only have 13 episodes, that was no longer possible. We barely have enough time to wrap up things with Barry and Iris’ upcoming family let alone who is Danielle Panabaker playing now, so there wasn’t enough time. So unfortunately, we’re not going to be able to wrap up the Legends storyline which I know is very disappointing to the fans. It’s disappointing to me. But we just don’t have the bandwidth.
Because this Arrow storyline had to be scrapped since The Flash’s final season already had enough on its plate, it’s unclear if when these time-traveling characters appear, we’ll be seeing them at a point before they were arrested by the Time Police, or if this takes place afterwards and there just won’t be any explanation for how they’re free. Either way, at least Legends of Tomorrow fans will get to reunite with these protagonists one final time rather than have the Legends Season 7 finale be their swan song. Eric Wallace added that because The Flash writers are still putting together the series finale, “you never know what could happen at the very end.” Maybe there might still be a way to give the Legends some much-needed resolution, even if it’s solely through dialogue.
Moving on, Eric Wallace also talked about some arcs for The Flash he’d thought up had the show been brought back for a 10th season. After sharing that he’d intended to do The Forever War storyline at this season’s opener, the showrunner said this:
I wanted to do a full on crossover with as many characters as possible. The Blackest Night storyline that we started hinting at last year with Diggle and the box. So yeah, it kind of bums me out that we’re not going to do that. I wanted to bring Despero with his alien friends and have a full on alien invasion. That would have featured the Justice League at the Hall of Justice coming in and helping Barry. We’re not going to do that either.
The final minutes of Arrow’s series finale saw David Ramsey’s John Diggle discovering a box that’d crash-landed on Earth emitting a mysterious green glow. For a couple years afterwards, Diggle surfaced on shows like Supergirl and Batwoman in the midst of trying to get the box reopened, which he finally accomplished in The Flash Season 8’s “The Man in the Yellow Tie” with the help of Eobard Thawne. However, Diggle resisted accepting the cosmic power within the box, instead throwing it away in favor of returning to his family. Had The Flash Season 10 happened, that Blackest Night tease would have been fully fleshed out, though it’s unclear if Team Flash dealing with an undead horde would have happened at the same time as Barry teaming up with his Justice League cohorts to deal with the return of Despero, the main antagonist in Season 8’s “Armageddon” arc, or occurred at a different point.
In the end, these storylines weren’t meant to be, but the good news is that The Flash fans have a lot to look forward to in Season 9. As indicated earlier, a lot of familiar Arrowverse faces will be back, including Stephen Amell reprising Oliver Queen/Green Arrow for the first time since Arrow ended, as well as the recent additions of Rick Cosnett, Matt Letscher and Jessica Parker Kennedy. Season 9 also sees the debut of Richard Harmon’s Owen Mercer, a.k.a. the new Captain Boomerang, and the tease of a blue crystal sitting in a laboratory in 2049 strongly suggests the show is bringing in Cobalt Blue, though that has yet to be confirmed.
The Flash Season 9 premieres tomorrow, February 8, at 8 pm ET on The CW. Keep track of what other shows are currently airing or coming up soon with our 2023 TV schedule, and look over what other upcoming DC TV shows are lined up.
