The Flash Showrunner Reveals Alternate Endings For The CW Series

Last week, The CW's The Flash ended on a hopeful note with Barry Allen (Grant Gustin) telling his newborn daughter — via voiceover — the story of how he became The Flash as well as that it was time to share their gift of speed, thus creating three new speedsters in Avery Ho, Max Mercury, and Jess Chambers. All of this came after Barry managed to save reality from the Negative Speed Force by forging an alliance with Eddie Thawne/Cobalt Blue, creating a truce between the two for the greater good. However, while all's well that ends well for the series, there were some other ideas for how The Flash's final run would play out — for both its current showrunner, Eric Wallace, and previous showrunner Todd Helbing.

Speaking with Entertainment Weekly, Wallace explained that he had an idea about the Negative Forces having a larger role to play, but it was cut down because The Flash didn't get a tenth season.

"I got the emotional heart of it, but because there was no season 10, there was just no time to set it up," Wallace said. "The ending that I did have in mind had the Negative Forces involved. We didn't get it quite as I wanted but the Negative Forces storyline would've been far, far bigger."

While Wallace got at least somewhat close to his ending, Helbing had wildly different ideas during his time as showrunner during seasons 2-5.

"I always thought it was going to end with the newspaper: 'Flash vanishes in crisis,' Helbing said. "Obviously, once Crisis happened, can't do that anymore. And I had a similar thought to Barry becoming the lightning that struck him, where he gets caught in the future and the only way to protect him from Reverse-Flash is to basically create himself. I thought that would've been a cool ending."

Grant Gustin wanted Barry to sacrifice himself to the Speed Force for the series finale.

The idea that Barry would become the lightning bolt is something that Gustin himself previously spoke about as well, though he said that Wallace was opposed to the idea and instead wanted a happy ending for the hero.

"When I thought about [The Flash] ending, there was a theory out there that Barry would sacrifice himself to keep the Speed Force alive and become the lightning bolt that inevitably struck him [in The Flash's pilot episode] and create this full circle moment, which I thought was really cool," he said. "Yeah, and I kinda always wanted him to die a hero's death in a way, and [showrunner] Eric [Wallace] was very opposed to the idea, and we really wanted to see a happy ending for Barry and Iris. And ultimately, I think that is, probably, looking back at this [season] and as fans revisit it, probably how they're going to want it to end."

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