The Flash: How Season 9 Renewal Changed the Season 8 Finale

The Flash ended its eighth season this week, but while it’s been confirmed that the series will return for Season 9 next year, “Negative, Part Two” wasn’t always meant to be a season finale. The episode was originally structured to serve as series finale before renewal news came down and now, series showrunner Eric Wallace is breaking down what was changed when The Flash got the gift more time.

According to Wallace, the entire final scene in the episode had to be changed. Instead of Barry (Grant Gustin) and Iris (Candice Patton) talking about everything they’d just been through with the Negative Forces, Wallace told TVLine that it was a deeper conversation.

“We had to change the whole final scene,” Wallace said. “We had to rewrite it three different times because when it was a series finale, we had to have a much more deep conversation with Barry and Iris, dealing with the fact that they were going to have kids soon. It was a little bit sexier, and it was a lot more romantic of a scene. I really liked it.”

Wallace also explained that the series finale version of the episode also had a Team Flash goodbye, but that ended up cut — and the show was able to tee up the Season 9 big bad instead by visiting 2049 and that ominous blue crystal. What didn’t really change, however, was the showdown between The Flash (Gustin) and Reverse Flash (Tom Cavanagh) that saw the series-long foe defeated at last. Wallace told ComicBook.com that, even with the show continuing on, that death is real — even if they hope to have Cavanagh back on the show next season.

“We had to go, ‘Oh, oops, oh. Hey, he’s super dead. How do we come back from this?’” I have no idea, to be honest with you. I’m not going to worry about it, it made for a good ending,” Wallace said. “We’re going to take a break. We will have some new villains next year. The question is, will Tom ever be the Reverse Flash on our show again? I don’t know, man, because just like Frost, the Reverse Flash of a negative Reverse Flash that he became, they are truly dead. But having said that, I can’t imagine a season of The Flash without just a little bit of the awesomeness that Tom Cavanagh brings, in some capacity.”

The Flash will return for Season 9 in 2023.