Why The Flash season 7’s villain might actually be Thawne (no, not that one)

Is an old ally set to return in The Flash season 7… as a villain? The new season’s description certainly suggests so…

The Flash season 7 is still quite a while off. In fact, it’s a whole eight months off, as the show that only just recently aired its sixth season’s impromptu finale won’t return until January 2021.

The CW confirmed its line-up recently, revealing that all original content won’t return until at least the beginning of next year. So while The Flash will return, it won’t be be back this year.

Fans of the show will know that The Flash had to cut season 6 short due to the outbreak of the novel coronavirus. As a result, the season wrapped up after 19 episodes instead of 22. However, it has since been confirmed by The CW that the remaining episodes will air as part of season 7’s prologue of sorts (before the new story kicks off).

However, the network has released a new description for the upcoming season in order to give fans a tease of what to expect and, well, it’s really quite an interesting one. Check it out below:

"After a thrilling cliffhanger last season which saw the new Mirror Master (Efrat Dor) victorious and still-at-large in Central City, The Flash must regroup in order to stop her and find a way to make contact with his missing wife, Iris West-Allen (Candice Patton). With help from the rest of Team Flash, which includes superheroes Caitlin Snow (Danielle Panabaker), Cisco Ramon (Carlos Valdes), Ralph Dibny (Hartley Sawyer), and Nash Wells (Tom Cavanagh), as well as the Flash’s adoptive father Joe West (Jesse L. Martin), Meta-Attorney Cecile Horton (Danielle Nicolet), tough cub reporter Allegra Garcia (Kayla Compton) and brilliant tech-nerd Chester P. Runk (Brandon McKnight)…Flash will ultimately defeat Mirror Master. But in doing so, he’ll also unleash an even more powerful and devastating threat on Central City: one that threatens to tear his team—and his marriage—apart."

Of course, the synopsis makes reference to the defeat of Mirror Master which, while it might seem like a spoiler, was always an inevitability of the storyline – so that doesn’t really give away anything we didn’t already know. However, it’s what comes next that is really interesting.

The description suggests that the defeat of Mirror Master will unleash an even greater threat that could ultimately tear Barry Allen and Iris West-Allen’s marriage apart. And this has fans excited because it sounds like it could be referring to the return of none other than Eddie Thawne.

Portrayed by Rick Cosnett, Eddie was a regular part of the show’s first season. A kind-hearted detective that fell in love with Iris, he was also a far-out relation of the Reverse-Flash Eobard Thawne – and this eventually led to him nobly sacrificing himself to prevent his descendant from ever being born.

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Yes, Eddie died in the season 1 finale, but ever since his body was sucked into the wormhole that developed above Central City, we’ve all wondered if he could ever return. And the reason that so many have suggested he could return as a villain is down to his comic book heritage… or lack thereof.

There is no Eddie Thawne in the comics, but there is a Malcolm Thawne aka Cobalt Blue. Introduced in the comics in the ’90s, Malcolm was actually Barry’s twin brother – who was given to the Thawne family after the doctor told Nora Allen that one of the twins was stillborn. He grew up longing for a life like the one his brother had and, in the end, turned to magic to make that happen – all while vowing revenge on the Scarlet Speedster at the same time.  And in order to command his magic, he used a talisman.

Given Eddie’s lack of comic book origins and his connection to Thawne, fans have theorized that he might return one day as Cobalt Blue – the necklace he wore during his death being the talisman – and, upon finding out that Barry married Iris, unleash a revenge plot similar to the one seen in the comics.

Now that we have confirmation of a villain that could tear Barry and Iris apart, it does seem like we could finally be getting Cobalt Blue’s debut on The Flash – especially when you factor in Grant Gustin’s recent comments about the original season 6 finale boasting a Thawne-related cliffhanger. He didn’t say which Thawne it would be now, did he?

Would you like to see Eddie show up as the villain of The Flash season 7? Is Cobalt Blue on the horizon? Let us know in the comments below!