One of the biggest questions surrounding Hartley Sawyer's firing from The Flash revolved around what the show would do with the character of Sue Dearbon. Showrunner Eric Wallace revealed that even without the Elongated Man, Sue isn't going anywhere.
Wallace told EW, "You're going to see Sue more than once this year even without the Elongated Man — on her own, making appearances, and helping Team Flash in an unexpected way. And it's just going to be hilarious because she was so much fun."
According to Wallace, getting rid of the character of Sue Dearbon was never even an option. He said that keeping Sue around was "one of the easiest decisions I've ever had to make as a showrunner." Wallace added, "I called up Natalie and said, 'Don't worry, you're still going to be part of this season. We'll find a way.' Now, when I told her that, to be honest, I wasn't quite sure [how]. But I am happy to report we found a way."
Losing Ralph ended up being all the inspiration the writing team needed to give Sue a new arc. Wallace said, "Now we can expand her character and give her more backstory and more growth in ways that we hadn't initially planned. [It's] really exciting to see how she's going to interact more with Team Flash once her name has been cleared — because we are going to clear her name obviously. But then what's the reason for her to come back to Central City? And that's going to be a bit of her story this season." He continued, "You try to take lemons and make lemonade, and suddenly, now Sue's possibilities are wide open. And we have a particular storyline that she's going to help us out with, [specifically] with one of our villains this season that we would have never gotten to had not the circumstances changed. So it is going to be, I think, fun and unexpected for the audience, as much as it was for us to write."
Back in June, Hartley Sawyer was fired from The Flash after a series of racist and misogynistic tweets resurfaced. Because of their marriage in the comics, Sue's plots were often tied to Ralph's in the show, creating a sticky situation for the writers after Sawyer was gone.
Returning to The CW for Season 7 in 2021, The Flash stars Grant Gustin, Candice Patton, Carlos Valdes, Danielle Panabaker, Tom Cavanagh, Jesse L. Martin and Danielle Nicolet.