The Flash Season 8’s opening “Armageddon” arc is packed with familiar Arrowverse faces, and when the Scarlett Speedster’s CW series returns next year, there’ll be a few other folks we haven’t seen in a while stopping by. Last month, it was revealed that Rick Cosnett will reprise Eddie Thawne in a flashback capacity. Now word’s come in that Upload and Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City star Robbie Amell, who popped in and out of The Flash’s first three seasons, is also back for Season 8.
As longtime fans of The Flash will remember, Robbie Amell played Ronnie Raymond, one half of the original Firestorm duo opposite Victor Garber’s Martin Stein. The last time we saw Amell on The Flash was in Season 3’s “Into the Speed Force,” and following that half-decade absence, EW reports that Amell will appear in two Season 8 episodes, starting with Episode 11. No details about his return were disclosed.
Robbie Amell’s Ronnie Raymond was introduced in The Flash Season 1 as Caitlin Snow’s fiancée who was thought to have died in the S.T.A.R. Labs particle accelerator explosion. As it turned out though, he’d actually merged with Martin Stein and the scientist’s F.I.R.E.S.T.O.R.M. matrix. Ronnie and Martin spent months forcibly combined, but thanks to the help of Team Flash, specifically Harrison Wells (actually a disguised Eobard Thawne/Reverse-Flash), they were finally able to separate and get a better handle on their powers. Unfortunately, Ronnie was presumed dead after Firestorm helped Barry dissipate the singularity that nearly destroyed Central City. Franz Drameh’s Jefferson Jackson would soon take Ronnie’s place as the other half of Firestorm for The Flash and Legends of Tomorrow.
Robbie Amell returned later on in The Flash Season 2 as Ronnie Raymond’s sinister Earth-2 doppelgänger known as Deathstorm, and then a manifestation of him appeared during “Into the Speed Force” the following season. Since the original Ronnie’s body was never recovered, it’s possible that Amell could be reprising Ronnie in the present day, and we’ll learn the extraordinary circumstances of how he survived and where he’s been all this time. However, like with Rick Cosnett, it’s also possible that we’ll simply see Amell playing Ronnie again in flashbacks. If that’s the case, then I’m curious about why we’d be looking back on him in years past for two episodes rather than just one.
In any case, to all the fans of The Flash out there, remember that after “Armageddon” concludes next month, the series will be going on hiatus until March, so it’ll be a while until we learn what’s in store for Ronnie Raymond. News of Robbie Amell’s return to The Flash comes several weeks after Victor Garber and Franz Drameh reprised their respective Firestorm roles for Legends of Tomorrow’s 100th episode. Other familiar faces confirmed to appear later on in The Flash Season 8 include Jessica Parker Kennedy’s Nora West-Allen, Jordan Fisher’s Bart Allen and John Wesley Shipp’s Jay Garrick.
For the remainder of The Flash’s 2021 run, new episodes will continue to premiere Tuesdays at 8 pm ET, but the rest of the season will air on Wednesday nights. Don’t forget to look through our fall 2021 TV premiere schedule to see when your other favorite shows are on.
