One week today, when The Flash returns to screens in the US, the series will be saying goodbye to an original member of Team Flash.
Next Tuesday’s episode, “Good-Bye Vibrations,” will mark the final appearance – for now – of Carlos Valdes as Cisco Ramon. In a new interview with TV Line the actor has opened up about his decision to leave the long-running show.
“It’s been a long time, actually,” said Valdes. “Doing this kind of show with the sort of commitment that comes with it, it happened very fast, and I think that at the time I was in a place where I was still figuring out my life. And right around Season 4, I started debating what the end for this character might look like. So, that seed was always there, but it didn’t really start becoming a reality until much later on — like, the end of Season 5, Season 6, where I started to become more comfortable with the idea of, ‘Oh, I think there’s a good way to put an end to this chapter.’”
Valdes would go on to praise showrunner Eric Wallace and co-stars Grant Gustin for his “sense of humour” and Tom Cavanagh for his “mentorship” over the years.
Speaking of his final episode Valdes says “I had a lot of fun with this episode. Leaving a show after years of working on it can be such an emotionally complex event, so to get the chance to be irreverent and kind of throw caution out the window and just play, just be silly, that ended up being a very cathartic experience for me. Because if it had been this very significant, intense, monumental goodbye, I think the pressure of delivering on that — and making it feel meaningful, for myself…. I don’t think that would have been the right way to go. I’m actually really grateful that Eric and the writers chose this route for my departure from the show. It’s [a] very silly, very goofy, low-stakes departure.”
The Flash stars Grant Gustin as Barry Allen/The Flash, Candice Patton as Iris West-Allen, Danielle Panabaker as Caitlin Snow, Carlos Valdes as Cicso Ramon, Tom Cavanagh Harrison Wells, and Jesse L. Martin as Joe West. The series airs Tuesdays at 8/7c on The CW.
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