The CW’s highly anticipated Arrow spin-off, The Flash, announced that Robbie Amell will play the role of Ronnie Raymond — half of the hero known as Firestorm. “Geoff Johns, Andrew Kreisberg and myself designed the pilot and series to include Ronnie (aka Firestorm) — and to actually have someone with Robbie’s talent playing the role is beyond exciting,” said executive producer Greg Berlanti. “We can’t wait for viewers and fans of the character to check it out.” If the name Amell sounds familiar to superhero fans, it might be that you remember him from The Tomorrow People, another CW show in which he played the character Stephen Jameson — or you might know his real-life cousin, Stephen Amell, one of the stars of Arrow. Robbie Amell will appear in the third episode of The Flash as a maintenance worker at S.T.A.R. Labs and fiance to Dr. Caitlin Snow. The Flash premieres on The CW on October 8.
HBO CEO Richard Plepler and HBO Programming President Michael Lombardo were tight-lipped about season two of True Detective at Thursday’s TCA panel in Los Angeles. They did, however, reveal that casting news is coming soon — like, next-week soon. [Update: The Hollywood Reporter said Friday that Colin Farrell is in talks for season two.] As for the rumor that season two will feature two male leads and one female lead, Plepler and Lombardo wouldn’t say. “We decided early on to free ourselves from the idea of stars and just lean into great acting,” Lombardo said. The HBO execs also promised that the first two episodes of season two will be “more exciting than the first season.”
The Clone Club may be up in arms today over Tatiana Maslany’s Emmy snub, but they’ll hopefully find solace in the news that Orphan Black is coming back to BBC America for season three. The show, which doubled in ratings from season one to season two, will begin shooting its ten new episodes this fall. In the same announcement, BBC America also shared that the British mystery Broadchurch starring David Tenant will be back for a second season, early in 2015. Fox will air an American adaptation of Broadchurch this fall: Gracepoint, starring Anna Gunn.
Better call Saul! Two more TV shows got a season two order before their premieres have even aired. El Rey, the English-language cable network helmed by filmmaker Robert Rodriguez, announced Thursday that its second original series Matador, which premieres on July 15, will have a second season. The CIA-soccer thriller created by Roberto Orci stars Gabriel Luna and the freshly-nominated Alfred Molina. Similarly, Cinemax announced that Steven Soderbergh’s turn-of-the-century medical drama, The Knick, is renewed for a second season. Season one premieres on Cinemax August 8.
Another rocker joins Sons of Anarchy season seven. TV Line reported this week that Kurt Cobain’s widow and Hole frontwoman, Courtney Love, will play a recurring guest spot in the final season. While Sons of Anarchy will be Love’s TV acting debut, she starred opposite Jim Carrey in Man on the Moon (1991) and was nominated for a Golden Globe for her performance in The People vs. Larry Flynt (1996). For SOA‘s final season, Love will have a multiple-episode arc as Ms. Harrison, a preschool teacher. Walton Goggins from Justified will also be on the last season of SOA, returning to his guest-starring role as Venus, a transgender prostitute.
