Spoilers ahead for “We Are The Flash,” the season four finale of The Flash, which airs tonight.
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Tonight’s season finale of The Flash ended the way most of them do: with some version of Harrison Wells (Tom Cavanagh) heading off into the sunset, never to be seen again (at least not until he can be of service to the plot).
And, like every season so far, executive producer Todd Helbing promised ComicBook.com that Wells will be back, in a new form, next season.
“At the end of the year, and this year is no different, we get to this question,” Helbing joked. “This year, I was up there for the finale, and I sat down with Tom and we started sort of spitballing some possible new Wellses. The two of us came up with some good options, but I think we landed on one in particular that serves the story in season five really well and also gives Tom something new and fun to play.”
Besides the fact that Cavanagh has played several different versions of Wells within the main narrative — Wells in flashback, Wells as being impersonated by Eobard Thawne, Wells from Earth-2, Earth-19’s H.R. Wells — he has also played several more for brief appearances in episodes like “When Harry Met Harry” and “Harry and the Harrisons.” In many cases, those variants felt somewhat one-note, with limited potential for long-term storytelling, but Cavanagh’s ability to constantly reinvent the character has continued to impress fans.
“This year, I’ve pulled out the ones that I wanted to at least get out right now, but we’ve got plenty more in the bucket,” admitted Cavanagh at the time. “When I do different characters on the show, my goal is to try and fill gaps that we have and openings that we have on the show.”
The team brought together the Earth-2 Wells with his counterparts from Earth-12, Earth-22 and Earth-47 (with a cameo by the Wells from a Gandalf-inspired Wells) in “When Harry Met Harry.” At the time, Cavanagh admitted that he had plenty of other Wellses that were left on the editing room floor.
“I remember Steve Van Zandt saying that Bruce Springsteen always has a number of songs in the scrapbook, ready to go,” Cavanagh said during a set visit earlier this season. “Steve’s quote was, ‘It’s really annoying.’ I’m that way with characters. I have a number of them. It’s just a question of, ‘Well, do we want ten? Do we want two?’ We had a number of them at first. I was like, ‘Listen, the show The Flash should be about the Flash, and not about Wells. So, what will happen is if we do ten, we will end up cutting all their stuff because we can only really afford to have three or four scenes in this arc. We thought it best that we pare it down.’ We went from 10 to six to four, or so. And, so, I think it’s unfortunate the Russian didn’t see the light of day. But, if this show keeps going, there will be plenty of time.”
The Flash airs on Tuesday nights at 8 p.m. ET/PT on The CW. The series will return for its fifth season in October.
