How The Flash‘s Delayed Finale Twist Will Affect Season 7’s ‘Graphic Novels’
Much is in flux at The Flash, (almost) all of it born of the pandemic pressing pause on production. But what might that delay mean for Season 7’s new “graphic novel” arcs?
Season 6 of The CW’s No. 1 series introduced what then-incoming showrunner Eric Wallace dubbed a “graphic novel” format, seeing as the first eight episodes had to set the stage for the “Crisis on Infinite Earths” crossover event and were thus a bit standalone. As such, “Graphic Novel No. 1” had its own Big Bad in Dr. Ramsey Rosso aka Bloodwork, while Graphic Novel No. 2 (which kicked off post-Crisis) focused on Eva McCulloch’s evolution into a new Mirror Master.
The abrupt stoppage of production in mid-March left The Flash with three written but uncompleted Season 6 episodes. Those episodes will now, in some form, lead off Season 7, triggering a ripple effect that will alter the rollout of the next, new Graphic Novels.
“Because this is The Flash, there’s a huge twist at the end of every season, and that twist is now kind of coming in the middle of the [start of the] season,” Wallace told TVLine. “And that has really affected our storytelling for all of Season 7,” which is hoped to premiere in January 2021.
Wallace, though, chooses to see the ripple effect as “yet another blessing in disguise,” akin to how Crisis drove the first half of Season 6. “Amid the horror and the tragedy of what’s happening with this pandemic, if we can find some kind of lemonade in the lemon, it’s us having to rethink a few things about how a Flash season looks, given this ‘narrative unpredictability’ to the season.
“There are going to be more Graphic Novels next year,” he assured, “but they’re not going to be broken up in the way I think folks expect.”
When we spoke with Wallace, he was already mulling whether to bring Caitlin/Frost back sooner than planned (since Danielle Panabaker’s maternity leave would no longer be an issue); the same goes for Carlos Valdes’ Cisco, who had embarked on a mission to Atlantis, but would have been back by the finale. Even so, he teased at the time, “Not only do we know what happens at the end of Season 6, but I could tell you all of Season 7 right now.”
An additional wrinkle has since surfaced, when series regular Hartley Sawyer, who played Ralph/Elongated Man, got fired in early June for a series of racist, misogynistic and homophobic tweets he authored years ago, before joining The Flash. So while Wallace in mid-May anticipated a “wee bit of tinkering” to Season 6’s final three scripts (if only to undo any season finale crowd scenes now rendered impossible by COVID-19 restrictions), Ralph’s sudden absence — assuming there is no recast — will also need to be written in.
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Meh…I’m caring less and less. Really loved this show for the first seasons, so that’s sad.
this show is 6 seasons in..if you cared less since the first season. why stick around this long just to complain? lol
I believe I will bail on this show as well after the Harley Sawyer fiasco. Grant Gustin just proved how much of a fair-weather friend he is when he didn’t give any support to his fellow co-worker and slammed the guy. Look, these where old tweets given by a guy who thought he was being funny. You had this atmosphere at the time of shock-jock comedians and his material just laid there. He apologized but that wasn’t good enough and was fired for something that wasn’t even a part of the show. They punished him excessively as if he is the same person who existed several years ago. People and their ideas change. Shall we convict a 34 year old person’s comments after what he/she said 20 years ago when they were 14? By that time, they have matured. But if they work on The Flash, they are guilty as sin. This cancel culture has gotten out of hand and the liberal left has created this monster that they can’t control anymore.
I wonder if they are running out of ideas having another evil speedster again? Will Godspeed be any different than Zoom? Also I wonder if they make Iris be crazy or evil after being in the Mirror Universe? Plus if they get rid of some of current characters for those new ones?
Writing Ralph and Sue out wouldn’t be a problem, as they could just go on the run together. When Eva gets exposed, they could just settle down in whatever city they run off to, but I hope they consider recasting Ralph.
I really love the character of Ralph, so I’m hoping for a recast too.
Whatever way the show goes plz do not break up Barry and Iris. They r the #1 couple on TV today
They are barley top 5
barley?
Kinda of hard to watch the show now with all the horrible things Grant has done coming to light
Do you mean Hartley Sawyer (Ralph)? Or did I completely miss something? It’s been like living in the Twilight Zone the past three months, so anything is possible at this point.
No. I think they meant Hartley. The most I have heard about Grant in the past few weeks is he said they were trying to get him to sign on for another two seasons of ‘The Flash’ before the Coronavirus caused a lot of the shows to be stopped and he supporting them firing Hartley Sawyer over his comments.
You do know Grant is not Hartley right they are two different people Grant is the star of the show he plays Barry Allen and in real life he has a history of breaking the law
You clearly mean Hartley Sawyer. Grant has done nothing. Hartley Sawyer’s sketchy social media past caused him to get fired. So, I don’t see how that would affect most people’s desire to watch. The person who said some horrible things on Twitter years ago has been fired.
The Flash Star Grant Gustin Triggers Plane Smoke Detectors By Vaping In Bathroom
I really hope the can think of good storyline despite all the complications. The Flash is one of my favorite shows and I’m worried all these problems first with covid and then with Hartley will completely screw it up.
Won’t bother watching it if Hartley Sawyer doesn’t appear in it. He never said anything racist. Saying the word racist on two occasions still leaves one looking for an actual racist comment anywhere. And a comment reflecting personal nonidentification with the awkwardness of homosexuality isn’t an insult. Sex is an awkward topic and reality. No one owes it nonawkward treatment. That doesn’t reflect the natural journey from birth to maturity.
Google his name and read the screencaps of his tweets. You clearly haven’t done so. It’s so much worse than I ever imagined. On top of racist comments, he literally talked about beating and murdering women. You may not care about that, though. While I do believe it’s likely has has changed since then, and I believe his apology was sincere, I never imagined his tweets would be as bad as they were. But, he has been fired, so there’s no chance he’ll appear. I suppose it won’t matter much to The Flash cast and crew if they lose you as a viewer. There’s plenty more. Even Hartley Sawyer admitted he said horrible things. This seems like a pretty strange hill to choose to die on when even the Hartley Sawyer admmits his behavior was bad. But, that’s up to you.
How is it strange to have love and forgiveness as a human its why God created us
i like the flash