Spoilers ahead for the Season 9 premiere of The Flash, “Wednesday Ever After.” Read at your own risk!
It’s the beginning of the end, as the Season 9 premiere has officially kicked off The Flash's final stretch on The CW. With it being the last season of the superhero series, Team Flash is going all out by bringing a lot of familiar faces back to Central City, when it comes to both heroes and baddies. The original plans were meant to go even bigger, however, when showrunner Eric Wallace and the rest of the team thought there'd be a full slate of episodes and the potential for Season 10.
It was only after The Flash’s final season was announced that the reveal came confirming only 13 episodes were on the way instead of a total closer to 20+ (as it's gone in past seasons not affected by COVID). Which came after Eric Wallace already had to downscale his plans that would have fed into a tenth season. Wallace spoke with The Nerds of Color and shared he had spectacular plans for Seasons 9 and 10, which would have involved the 200th episode:
Well, the fascinating thing was in approaching the stories for the final season. I had originally had a two-year plan for the series for Seasons 9 and 10. And it culminated with this incredible 200th episode, a spectacular, wonderful emotional event that was meant to happen. That was before we got the news that this is going to be our last season. That was going to be a Season 9 was, only I found myself in a position going, ‘Wow, I have a whole bunch of story for 40 episodes!’ that I’m now going to cram into 13. So it wasn’t a case of what to do. It was what not to do.
When The Flash airs its series finale, it will wrap at about 184 episodes, making it just 16 short of 200, which is definitely a disappointment, though still a huge feat for any genre series. It sounds like Eric Wallace had some pretty big plans for Season 10 that had to get left out before the cutting room floor even came into it. As far as specifics, those may need to be kept secret until the season is over, as not to spoil the things that definitely won't happen.
Luckily, there will still be lots of big Flash plotting and character work to look forward to throughout the rest of Season 9. Eric Wallace promises there will still be tons of nostalgia as fans somewhat travel back to the first season where it all began, for a reworked version of his Episode 200 plan. In his words:
So there was a mad dash of pruning, and basically, the 200th episode that I had planned that has become the series finale. So that’s kind of the approach, and then I just worked backwards from there saying, alright, what are the absolute most important things to get out in Season 9? What things do we owe — story wise? What character things do we have to pay off? What hanging plot was left over from Season 1? Because Season 9 really is a book. And I’m looking at Season 1 and 9 as the book ends to this journey that The Flash and his team have been on for all these years. So I’m telling both now and, like, get ready for a little nostalgia but also a little bit of paying off things that have been into that as early as Season 1.
TV: Airs on The CW every Wednesdays night at 8:00 p.m. ET
Streaming: The CW website and On Demand (for current eps), Netflix (for past seasons)
Whenever shows go back to their roots for final seasons, you know (or at least hope) it’s going to be good. While it is sad that some storylines did have to be cut, like a potential return to Legends of Tomorrow’s unfinished stories, at least there’s still a decent amount of episodes to wrap up Team Flash’s story, with an official conclusion in place. Too bad the same can’t be said for all the shows canceled in 2022.
Meanwhile, there’s already been some spectacular storylines this season, as Danielle Panabaker’s new character was revealed to be someone very different from Caitlin and Frost. Not only that, but Javicia Leslie’s character also made an appearance, and not as Ryan Wilder this time around, but instead, the big bad Red Death. How those two will impact the final season will be something to look forward to, as well as what this means for Barry and the team.
With what Eric Wallace still has planned for this season of The Flash, including an epic-yet-emotional reunion between Barry and Stephen Amell’s Oliver Queen, tissues are definitely still going to be needed. And I can’t wait to see how Team Flash’s story comes to an end amidst everything else in the 2023 TV schedule.
