The Flash season 9 will be the show’s last, which also has major implications for the future of the Arrowverse. After the announcement that Grant Gustin had signed on for only one more season of The Flash, the show was clearly heading toward its ending. Now, The CW has confirmed that The Flash will end with season 9, marking the conclusion of an era for DC superhero shows and for the network as a whole.
The Flash’s pilot episode aired in October 2014, launching the first-ever Arrow spinoff and creating what audiences now recognize as the Arrowverse. Before The Flash’s debut, Grant Gustin played Barry Allen in Arrow season 2, with his two episodes serving as a backdoor pilot for The Flash's own show. At the same time, Ezra Miller was cast as Barry Allen for Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, which completely set apart the live-action DC movies from the live-action DC shows on The CW.
From The Flash’s pilot to Crisis on Infinite Earths, the Arrowverse seemed like it would always continue to grow bigger. Arrow’s realism, which was a product of its time and of Christopher Nolan’s Dark Knight trilogy influences, had been replaced by a more fantastic DC universe. Aliens, magic, and time travel became common in the many Arrowverse shows, and every DC character could somehow fit into that universe. However, the Arrowverse shows were failing in replicating the success of Arrow and The Flash’s early seasons, and that expansion was replaced by a number of cancellations. Now, after the reveal that Superman & Lois isn't set in the Arrowverse, The Flash ending with season 9 will mark the end of the Earth-Prime Arrowverse shows.
Which Arrowverse Shows Still Exist
Currently, The Flash is the only Arrowverse show set on Earth-Prime airing on The CW. Previously, Superman & Lois was presumed to also be part of the Arrowverse, as the show saw Supergirl’s Tyler Hoechlin reprising his role as Superman, and it came to be after the Crisis on Infinite Earth event. Diggle, one of the first characters in the Arrowverse, had also appeared in Superman & Lois, seemingly making it pretty clear that the show was set in the Arrowverse. However, apart from Diggle’s cameo and one small reference to the Crisis of Infinite Earths event, Superman & Lois always felt like it was trying to distance itself from the Arrowverse. The biggest elephant in the room was the complete lack of Supergirl – Melissa Benoist never reprised her role on the show, and Kara was never mentioned by Clark or Lois. The Superman & Lois season 2 finale then confirmed that the show is indeed not set in the Arrowverse’s Earth-Prime. Superman is mentioned as the world’s only protector, meaning that all the other heroes, like Flash and Supergirl, do not exist there.
Likewise, while Stargirl appeared briefly during the Crisis on Infinite Earths event, her show is also not part of the Arrowverse. In fact, Stargirl was originally an exclusive show from DC Universe, the streaming platform responsible for shows like Titans and the Young Justice revival, which has been reworked into comics-only stories. Stargirl was picked up by The CW, but the show was never an official part of the Arrowverse. Therefore, when it comes to actual Arrowverse shows set on Earth-Prime, The Flash was the last only remaining.
Why The Arrowverse Is So Much Smaller Now
Up until the reveal that Superman & Lois was never part of the Arrowverse, that show and The Flash were assumed to be the last remaining in the Arrowverse, which made sense. After hitting its prime with several DC shows airing at the same time, plus never-before-seen crossover events like Crisis on Infinite Earths, the Arrowverse started to strain. Arrow, the show that started it all, received a proper ending that wrapped Oliver Queen’s story, yet the show had been struggling with ratings for a while. Following Arrow’s ending, The Flash became the Arrowverse’s flagship, but its ratings were also not as great as they once were. Not too long after Arrow’s ending, Black Lighting was canceled, which suggested that the Arrowverse was no longer in a phase of expansion. In November 2021, Supergirl, which had become one of the Arrowverse’s pillars, was also surprisingly canceled.
More recently, as the future of both The CW and Warner Bros. was still uncertain following the latter's acquisition by Discovery, Batwoman and Legends of Tomorrow were also canceled. The reason reportedly had to do with cutting the network’s costs with sets and everything else that a production like Batwoman or Legends of Tomorrow demanded. Legends of Tomorrow was the third show created for the Arrowverse and saw dozens of Arrowverse characters through its seven-season run, yet it did not get the chance to have a proper ending. That is a testimony to how the Arrowvere shows were no longer a priority for the network.
Will The Flash Season 9 End The Arrowverse?
As of now, The Flash is the only CW superhero show set in the Arrowverse, and it's set to end next year after season 9. Superman & Lois and Stargirl are also returning for another season, which likely will not be their last ones, but they do not count as Arrowverse. In January, a John Diggle-led TV show was reported to be in the works on The CW, featuring the veteran Arrowverse character as the leader of a group of young superheroes. However, not many updates followed the announcement, and it’s unclear if the show will indeed happen.
Since then, John Diggle appeared on The Flash and saw its potential Green Lantern story be retconned and wrapped up. David Ramsey also appeared in Superman & Lois as Diggle, but his character was actually an alternate version of the one audiences know, as the show is not set in the Arrowverse. Even if the John Diggle show still happens, nothing guarantees that it will follow the Arrowverse Diggle instead of the Superman & Lois one. Therefore, once The Flash season 9 ends, so will the Arrowverse as audiences know it.
What The Arrowverse's Future Could Be After The Flash Ends
As of now, it is difficult to picture new Arrowverse shows being produced for The CW. The network is going through massive behind-the-scenes changes as its controlling stake is being sold. The CW reportedly wants to say in the superhero business, but it will not be as big as before. Currently, there is only one new superhero show in development at The CW: Gotham Knights. This show will be a mixture of original characters and lesser-known Batman sidekicks, and it will not have any connections to previous shows or the Arrowverse. All of that points to The Flash season 9 being the very final chapter of the Arrowverse. Considering that The Flash was the second show in the Arrowverse and pretty much started the concept of Arrow spinoffs, it is most fitting that its ending gets to close out the Arrowverse.