Tom Cavanagh is leaving The Flash (for real this time) along with Carlos Valdes
There are going to be some job openings at S.T.A.R. Labs after this season of The CW’s The Flash, so anyone with experience being a tech genius and/or multiple alternative-universe versions of the same guy should get their résumés in order. This is a roundabout way of saying that both Carlos Valdes and Tom Cavanagh are going to be leaving The Flash for good once the current season (the show’s seventh) wraps up. Both have been around since the very beginning, with Valdes playing Cisco Ramon (and later the superhero Vibe) and Cavanagh playing Harrison Wells/Eobard Thawne (the evil Reverse Flash) in season one and then various other versions of Harrison Wells from different realities in every subsequent season. It’s been a running joke on the show that Cavanagh’s character pretty much always dies or gets written out in some way every year, only for him to return as a different person, but this time it seems like it’s really happening.
Actually, though, it would be more accurate to say that it already happened. As pointed out by Deadline (which first reported this news), Cavanagh was actually supposed to leave the show at the end of last season until the COVID delays hit, which is why he’s been noticeably absent for most of season seven. His final appearance as a series regular was back in March, in the “oh, this was supposed to be the finale” episode, but he will apparently pop a few more times before his true goodbye. As for Valdes, he’ll be around until the season finale, after which point someone else on Team Flash will have to start coming up with snappy villain names for the bad guys Barry fights.
In a statement, showrunner Eric Wallace noted that Cavanagh and Valdes have been “an integral part” of The Flash and that they are “happily keeping the door open for return appearances.” That means the characters probably aren’t going to die, but this being The Flash, they could always just come back as new versions of these characters from different universes.