Several weeks after the tragic death of Harley Sawyer’s fan-favorite character Ralph Dibny, also known as Elongated Man, made a surprising return in The Flash Season 4 finale. While Ralph was thought to be dead after The Thinker absorbed all his powers, the superhero emerged from nowhere during the final battle with the big bad DeVoe.
In a recent interview with Comicbook, The Flash’s showrunner Todd Helbing explained the return of Elongated Man. He revealed that from the start they knew that Elongated Man is here to stay. They have a lot of stories to tell about him. Also, they want to explore his storyline with Sue Dibny, who as per the comic books is Ralph’s wife.
“With The Thinker and DeVoe’s plan, it hit a lot of story points with us,” Helbing further explained. “The reason why he was jumping through all these other metahumans was to take their powers, and we knew that when he finally got to Ralph, [the question was] how do we keep Ralph alive and bring him back and with his powers? DeVoe was able to return to form and we could pay off the Weeper storyline and emotionally, we could really get something that hit home with the team and send the team on a journey, dealing with a team member’s death, and ultimately how this brings them closer together. They all have to work as a team and then it just felt like the best time to bring him back, in the finale, when he goes into the mindscape and he finds Ralph Dibny still alive.”
During the finale, Barry made his way to The Thinker’s consciousness where he finds Ralph alive. For his enlightenment to complete, DeVoe needed his most recent host Dibny to remain alive. DeVoe starts a fight with Barry and Ralph in his consciousness in order to stop them from reaching his nexus of mind. Barry and Ralph succeed in their plan and defeat DeVoe from completing the process and taking over Star City.
“From day one, that was sort of the plan that we came up with,” Helbing told the abovementioned publication. “Ralph’s powers are so unique. In the comics, there’s a lot of things we haven’t done yet with Ralph Dibny. We have a lot of investigative stories to tell; we obviously want to get to Sue Dibny at some point. So it just didn’t feel from the beginning that we could tell his story in one episode and we all fell in love with Hartley literally from the moment we met with him and we knew we wanted to have him part of the show moving forward.”
Another highpoint of The Flash Season 4 finale featured the much-anticipated revelation of Jessica Parker Kennedy’s Mystery Girl. She made her first appearance during the annual Arrowverse crossover “Crisis on Earth-X.” Thereafter, she made several recurring appearances. However, her identity remained a secret.
Tonight, the big revelation was made when the Team is celebrating DeVoe’s defeat and Cecile and Joe’s newborn baby Jenna West. She broke into the house and revealed herself to be Iris and Barry Allen’s daughter from future–Nora. The show ended on a big cliffhanger where Nora confesses to making a “big mistake.”
Nora’s arrival from the future and the big mistake clearly hints at the threat or a new villain for the next season. The Flash Season 5 is yet to get a premiere date. However, it is expected to air sometime in October. Be sure to keep visiting Pursue News for more updates and information.
