#The Flash season 7 spoilers: How will Elongated Man be addressed?

Entering The Flash season 7, one of the things that we know for sure is that Hartley Sawyer is gone. He was fired earlier this year after some racist and homophobic social-media messages were uncovered from past past, and this decision led to the writers having to make some key decisions.

Technically, Elongated Man is a character who could adopt a number of different forms — you don’t need Sawyer to play the character in order to make him work. Yet, at the same time there is another challenge that comes in that keeping the character around could serve as somewhat of a distraction … and you want a show like The Flash to focus more on the characters themselves.

While Sawyer is gone, rest assured that there will still be some closure to the Elongated Man story … even though it doesn’t seem like he’s a permanent part of the show’s future. Speaking via Entertainment Weekly, showrunner Eric Wallace confirmed that there are plans to step away from Ralph Dibny early on in season 7, but not before they wrap up his story in some proper form:

In order to wrap that up, which we’re going to do at the top of season 7, Ralph has to be part of that. Now thank goodness, Ralph is a guy who can change faces and his appearance in many ways. Without giving any spoilers away, there are a couple of ways that we can have Elongated Man still appear in at least one episode this season to wrap that storyline up, that gets us what we need and still allows fans to say goodbye to the character, at least for the indefinite future.

So what does all of this mean for Sue Dearbon? Rest assured, it does seem as though there are still plans for what character to appear — while it’s not going to be as it was first planned, it seems like there’s a concentrated effort here to ensure that Natalie Dreyfuss did not have to depart the show just because of Sawyer’s past actions.

The Flash season 7 will premiere on The CW early next year. For some more news on the subject, be sure to visit the link here now.

What do you want to see on The Flash moving into next season?

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