The Flash actors Tom Cavanagh and Carlos Valdes have recently exited the show, and they won't be returning when the show enters its eighth season. That's a massive blow to the speedster serial's core cast, as the character of Cisco Ramone (played by Valdes) is one of the earliest members of Team Flash, while Cavanagh has played a whole suite of different "Wells" over the show's history, including the Reverse-Flash. No specific reason has been given for either actor's departure, but it's hard to escape the feeling of The Flash as a sinking ship. Arrow has long since ended, and Supergirl is currently in the midst of its final season, which leaves The Flash as the lone survivor when it comes to core Arrowverse shows.
It's in the nature of television shows to want to continue. Going forward means continued employment for everyone involved, as well as the change to tell bigger and flashier stories. But that constant escalation can also lead to shows "jumping the shark," as they go so far as to shatter the audience's suspension of disbelief. Originating from the '70s sitcom Happy Days, the term has since become a catch-all for any property that lives past its welcome. But the goal for television shows as stories shouldn't just be to keep going. There ought to be a sense of finale -- an ending that ties the story's themes together and makes it feel like it's ending for a reason beyond declining ratings or the disinterest of its performers.
Season 7 of The Flash is not that ending. Introducing new villains in the form of the "Forces," the show's latest season stumbles about, failing to offer a compelling difference between Forces and metahumans, while also being seemingly distracted by multiple subplots involving Killer Frost. And the sad truth is that Season 8 is also unlikely to offer that desired sense of closure. With Cavanagh leaving the show, The Flash loses access to its greatest villain -- the Reverse-Flash. While he could still return as a guest star, the odds of Cavanagh's bone-chilling performance as Eobard Thawne gracing fans for another season seem fairly slim. That's a pretty big issue, especially since The Flash is a show defined by its villains.
Like most superhero shows, the heroic status quo on each season of The Flash remains mostly unchanged. While there might be a rare addition of a new member to the team, the overall dynamic and tone of Team Flash have generally remained the same. This means the big variable in each season is the antagonist. In Season 1, the show primarily focused around villains of the week but had the Reverse-Flash as an overall Big Bad. Season 2 replaced him with Zoom (who was fine), Season 3 had Savitar (who was underwhelming), and while Season 4 had the potential for a huge upswing with DeVoe, it lost that momentum when his overall plan made zero sense.
Seasons 5, 6, and 7 have yet to recover from that misstep, with a series of bland and generally uninteresting villains. Season 6 even split its airtime, with two smaller villains each occupying their own half of the season. Each season of the show seems like it's scrabbling for air, and no villain seems like they would be a fitting final foe for the Scarlet Speedster. And the greatest tragedy of that decline is that the show had a natural stopping point, established from its very first episode -- "Flash Missing, Vanishes in Crisis." It was established from the very beginning of the show that the "Crisis on Infinite Earths" would be a turning point for the character. The first half of the show's sixth season even built up this point, spending a large part of its runtime agonizing over what the world would be like once Barry Allen had moved on.
Except he didn't move on. "Crisis" came and went, and Barry Allen received a "get out of jail free" card. While the hero originally died during the event's comic book equivalent, the Arrowverse's version killed off a Flash of an alternate timeline instead. The Flash is no stranger to dodging around events previously set in stone, but letting Barry live here gave up the greatest chance the show had at a satisfying finale. Any eventual ending for The Flash now is likely to feel arbitrary and unsatisfying, but it will be for the better if that ending comes sooner rather than later.
The Flash stars Grant Gustin, Candice Patton, Jesse L. Martin, Danielle Panabaker, Carlos Valdes and Tom Cavanagh. New episodes air Tuesdays at 8 p.m. ET/PT on The CW.