The CW Conclave: Six new characters you should tune in for

Catherine Palmer

Most of The CW’s lineup will be returning with new seasons in just under two months. Here are six new characters you’ll want to meet.

Most successful series will continually expand their cast each season. It comes with the territory of world-building or even of bringing in fresh blood just to shake things up. Grey’s Anatomy, for example, is still one of ABC’s top-rated shows and is headed into its record-breaking fifteenth season this fall with only four of its original cast members. Meanwhile, genre shows on The CW like Supernatural and Arrow are required to bring in at least one new villain per season.

Of course, most series don’t revamp their cast as dramatically as Grey’s has over the years, but the show has demonstrated the power that new characters can bring. Plenty of people still watch it for the OGs, but plenty of people don’t. The series has an entire generation of fans who weren’t even alive or had only just been born when it premiered in 2005.

Focusing now on The CW, several new characters are debuting on the network’s returning shows. Here’s a look at six new characters you should tune in to meet on the new seasons of Arrow, Riverdale, The 100, The Flash and Supergirl.

6. Roy Harper – Arrow

All right, so Colton Haynes’ Roy Harper isn’t technically a new character on The CW. However, Haynes departed Arrow as a series regular back in 2015 after season three, and in the years since, has made only three guest appearances.

Roy has primarily been living on the run and only suited up a handful of times. Thus, Roy will be getting reacquainted with his role as a vigilante, assuming he rejoins Team Arrow, just as fans will be getting reacquainted with Roy himself.

Additionally, Roy will be meeting much of the current, though fractured, Team Arrow for the first time this season, namely, Curtis Holt (Echo Kellum), Dinah Drake (Juliana Harkavy) and Rene Ramirez (Rick Gonzales).

5 & 4. Gladys & Jellybean Jones – Riverdale

Riverdale hasn’t actually announced who will play Jughead’s (Cole Sprouse) mom Gladys or his little sister Jellybean yet. Lauren Graham and Dafne Keen are my top picks. (Fingers crossed)

While we await that news, though, we at least don’t have to speculate about when the characters will make their debut. According to Comic Book Resources, Sprouse confirmed at last month’s San Diego Comic Con that fans will meet the other half of the Jones family in the eighth or ninth episode of Riverdale‘s upcoming third season.

Not much has been teased about Gladys in previous seasons, though we know she and FP (Skeet Ulrich) have a complicated relationship due to his struggles with alcoholism. Gladys may also interfere, intentionally or not, with the possibility of fan-favorite ship FP and Alice getting together.

More from The CW

I’m betting it will be Gladys and Jughead that will have the more tense and interesting reunion, though. After all, she left Riverdale to give her daughter a better life, away from FP, but didn’t bring her son.

Then, as Jughead’s life was falling apart at the end of season one, he decided to move out to Toledo to live with his mom and sister. However, when Jughead called to give Gladys the happy news, she told him he couldn’t come.

Jughead has since found a community among the Serpents and even told FP he didn’t want to move to Ohio when FP suggested it near the end of season two. However, that doesn’t mean Jughead should be quick to forgive his mom for abandoning him.

LONDON, ENGLAND – MARCH 18: Actress Dafne Keen, winner of the Best Female Newcomer award, poses in the winners room at the Rakuten TV EMPIRE Awards 2018 at The Roundhouse on March 18, 2018 in London, England. (Photo by Jeff Spicer/Getty Images)

Turning to Jellybean, I think her age alone will make her a standout character. Riverdale currently has two main demographics: 16-year-olds and middle-aged adults. Jellybean is neither, though she could span a bit of an age range, as I explained in my fan casting.

"Jughead cited his sister as being ten years old back in season one. Given that only about a year has gone by since the pilot, per Riverdale‘s timeline, Jellybean will presumably be eleven or twelve when she makes her debut. That being said, shows often age up characters, especially if they’ve previously only been mentioned offscreen or haven’t appeared often. If Riverdale goes that route, I’m guessing Jellybean could potentially be upwards of 14."

Whatever her age ends up being, throwing a younger kid into the mix on a show as dark as Riverdale should be interesting.

3. Jordan Jasper Green – The 100

The 100‘s season five finale could have been a lot bloodier and more devastating. I’m not saying that I wanted it to be that brutal, but it felt almost strange that we got a kind of happy ending.

Of course, it did come at a cost. Long-time fan favorites Monty Green (Christopher Larkin) and Harper McIntyre (Chelsey Reist) chose not to go into cryo-sleep but rather to live out their lives aboard the spaceship. That decision ended up making them heroes, particularly Monty, but it also means we won’t see them again.

After he realized that Earth wouldn’t recover from yet another nuclear attack, Monty figured out how to save the human race by sending the ship to a new planet, which he knew the ship wouldn’t reach until well after his death.

While it’s quite upsetting that Monty and Harper only intended to be separated from their friends for a decade but were ultimately never able to reunite with them, the couple were at least able to experience the quiet, peaceful life they always wanted. Plus, they had a baby, now an adult, who is already beloved by The 100 fandom, following his brief cameo in the finale.

I’m referring, of course, to Jordan Jasper Green (Shannon Kook). His name alone is poignant, paying tribute to Monty’s best friend, Jasper Jordan (Devon Bostick), who died tragically as a teenager in season four, following a long battle with depression.

Jordan Green led a very sheltered life prior to going into cryo-sleep, presumably in his early twenties. Solely based on his cameo, he seems like the most cheerful character to ever exist on The 100. Hopefully, he won’t lose that, at least not entirely, over the course of season six.

Many fans are particularly looking forward to Jordan’s interaction with Madi (Lola Flanery). Though Jordan is significantly older than Madi, they are both the only members of the 100’s next generation. Additionally, Madi knows what it’s like to grow up with only your parent(s), so she can probably help Jordan adjust to life with Wonkru, especially since she’s now commander.

Unfortunately, The 100 won’t return on The CW for season six until, at least, midseason, so fans have a long hiatus ahead of them. In the meantime, just watch the scene where Jordan meets Clarke (Eliza Taylor) and Bellamy (Bob Morley) on a loop. Jordan’s adorable smile will tide you over.

2. Nora Allen – The Flash

Speaking of the next generation, The Flash will introduce the daughter of newlyweds Barry (Grant Gustin) and Iris (Candice Patton) as a main character in season five. Technically, Nora (Jessica Parker Kennedy) was already featured in The Flash‘s fourth season, even before her cameo in the finale.

A fellow speedster, she secretly came in clutch for Team Flash as they worked to defeat Clifford DeVoe (Neil Sandilands). She also subtlety introduced herself to many members of the team before making her grand appearance in the finale, in which viewers and the characters finally learned of her identity.

More from Show Snob

Needless to say, it was a rather trippy experience for Team Flash, particularly Barry and Iris. It’s not every day that you meet your future daughter, who is your age, and needs your help fixing her “big, big mistake.” Then again, almost nothing that happens on The Flash could really be considered normal.

So far, it’s unclear what exactly Nora messed up so badly. However, in a recent interview with Newsarama, Kennedy teased what to expect in terms of Nora’s interactions with her parents

"Something has obviously happened for me to feel much closer to my father than my mother. It’s something you’ll find out relatively early on in the season."

During an Entertainment Weekly Comic Con interview, Patton spoke about the relationship from Iris’ perspective.

"Iris is very, very eager and excited to get to know her daughter, who’s back from the future. And I think as we hinted in the finale of last season, that’s kind of met with some coldness from Nora… It makes me sad when we act it."

Hopefully, Nora and Iris can work through their issues as the season continues. But I also hope that the conflict between them will, at least, be meaningful and handled well. The Flash doesn’t have the best track record of depicting platonic female relationships at all, let alone complex ones.

Iris and Caitlin (Danielle Panabaker) barely had any interactions before season four — a fact that The Flash, to its credit, did concede. However, Iris and Caitlin’s season four arc of shifting from acquaintances to friends still didn’t receive that much screen time.

1. Nia Nal – Supergirl

Supergirl has perhaps received the most attention of any show on The CW, regarding its casting additions — and rightfully so. Three years after the series made its historic debut as DC’s only female-led superhero TV show, Supergirl will make history again in season four by introducing television’s first transgender superhero: Nia Nal, aka Dreamer.

Trans activist Nicole Maines has been cast in the series regular and multi-faceted role. While the season will find Nia taking on her hero mantle, she will also be a new reporter at CatCo. In fact, as I’ve previously written about, Nia’s dual identity was not included in the original casting call, but she was linked to a fan favorite character.

"Nia promises to shake things up at CatCo and bring back a familiar energy that’s been missing its name-sake stepped down. That’s right! Everyone’s favorite one-liner queen has finally found her spiritual successor, so to speak, and it’s not James Olsen or Kara Danvers. Per the casting notice, Nia is “a young ‘Cat Grant’ type,” who brings not only “sparkling wit and biting humor” but also a “soulful” intellect."

In an interview with Variety at Comic Con, Maines explained why it was so important to her and for transgender representation that Nia not be solely defined by her gender identity.

"Trans characters don’t have to be “the trans character”… I think in television there is a pattern we’ve seen of, you know, the trans character comes out and then their entire storyline is about their transness… Trans people have lives outside of our gender identity and our transness, and I think it’s time to start telling those stories."

Introducing Nia, a multi-faceted LGBTQ character, is also important for The CW, given its poor reputation for representation, which largely stems from The 100.

Lexa (Alycia Debnam-Carey) was an incredibly popular and complex character, who was not solely defined by her sexual orientation. However, her death in 2016 during the show’s third season played right into the “Bury Your Gays” TV trope from the perspective of many fans.

The issue is somewhat complicated since Debnam-Carey was leaving the show and, therefore, had to be written off. However, it’s pretty universally agreed that the precise nature of her death and its coming just after the consummation of her relationship with Clarke was detrimental to LGBTQ representation.

The CW has since made strides, including with Alex Danvers’ (Chyler Leigh) coming out storyline in Supergirl‘s second season and subsequent relationship with Maggie Sawyer (Floriana Lima).

Nia should be an especially big win for representation because trans characters, particularly multi-faceted ones, are so rarely seen on television and are often portrayed by cisgender people.

Which new characters are you most excited to see on The CW this season? Let us know in the comments section below.

Catherine Palmer

Catherine Palmer is a Southside Serpent and former editor and columnist for The Johns Hopkins News-Letter. She wishes she could have majored in TV Studies but settled for a creative writing degree.