Black Lightning ended its four-season run last night, wrapping up Jefferson Pierce's (Cress Williams) story by having him finally put an end to Tobias Whale's (Marvin Jones III) reign of terror.
The episode saw Black Lightning and Whale square off in an epic battle that ultimately ended with the latter falling out of a window and getting impaled by a pole. Unsurprisingly, that wasn't quite enough to stop the evildoer as he continued trying to kill Jefferson, before the hero was finally forced to put him down with a devastating strike of lightning.
With Jefferson's quest to avenge his father now complete, he then went home to his family and retired as the protector of Freeland, handing over the reins to his daughters Anissa (Nafessa Williams) and Jennifer (China Anne McClain).
However, while his time in Freeland may be over, it doesn't sound like fans will have to wait too long for Williams to suit back up.
Speaking with Entertainment Weekly, Williams revealed that he's already had some preliminary talks to potentially return to the role in The Flash season eight, which resulted in him tweaking his character's decision to retire last night.
"The original piece of dialogue said that I full-on retire. I don't know if any of these things are going to come to fruition, so they're not set in stone, but I have had people from The Flash reach out, asking if I'd come do some work with them. So they had kind of tentatively reached out months before we shot the finale. So in anticipating me leaving that door open, and anticipation of that being a possibility, that's why I changed it slightly to basically say, "I'm done in Freeland and just kind of like giving Freeland over to my daughter." So that if I show up somewhere else, I haven't contradicted anything."
The move would, of course, reunite Williams with Grant Gustin's Scarlet Speedster, something the actor is looking forward to as he really enjoyed working with him on the "Crisis on Infinite Earths" crossover, citing the scene between the two aboard the Waverider as one of his favorites to shoot.
"We're moving back to California, and so Vancouver, for short stints, to pop in and do something and pop back out, is not as challenging for me and it doesn't require packing up and moving my whole family. I wouldn't be able to suddenly join another show that's not in California. So there's that logistical thing. But also, you know, I really enjoyed the crossover last year. Specifically, I think me and Grant [Gustin], we're just very like-minded in how we approach the work, and we had really great conversations. One of my favorite scenes of doing this character was the scene between me and him in the library [on the Waverider in "Crisis on Infinite Earths."] So the thought of being able to go back and do an episode here or an episode there? Oh yeah, no, I'm down for that."
He stresses that he's still in the negotiation phase of the process, but considering today's breaking news that The Flash season eight would feature five event episodes this fall with major cameos from other superheroes from across the CW-Verse, it seems likely that Jefferson Pierce will be one of the special guest stars.
"Just in the talk phase. I was really surprised because it was months ago, I think in the fall, when they first approached me about, "Hey, do you, would you do something with us next season?" And so I initially said yeah, or my representatives said, "Yeah, we're interested, but you know, that's quite a ways away, and who knows where we're going to be at that point." And they just kind of came back saying, "Hey, we'll work around your schedule. We just want to know if you're interested."
Then probably about two months ago, they came back with like, checking again and saying, "We're thinking about a couple of episodes, and these are the months that we're thinking about, and want to just, again, see if you're into it." And basically we said the same thing, like, "Yeah, yeah." So I imagine at some point the next thing will be something a little bit more final."