The Flash Showrunner Addresses If Season 7's Plot Will Change Due to COVID-19 Pandemic

The Flash's sixth season came to a close earlier this week, airing its defacto series finale on The CW on Tuesday night. The long-running Arrowverse series was among the several that had its production shut down due to the current COVID-19 pandemic, leading to Season 6 ending three episodes earlier than originally planned. As showrunner Eric Wallace recently explained to TVLine, those circumstances have created an interesting conundrum for when the series returns for Season 7. While Wallace argued that a lot of the plot details tied to the remaining three episodes won't change, circumstances surrounding social distancing might change the nature of certain scenes.

"When this was happening, we were well into breaking Season 7," Wallace explained. "Not only do we know what happens at the end of Season 6, but I could tell you — I'm not going to! — all of Season 7 right now."

"I wouldn't say they're locked," Wallace added. "There might be a wee bit of tinkering. Obviously some things need to change because we don't know what COVID restrictions there will be on shooting, what protocols might come up. For instance, as in all of the Flash finales, we would have seen huge crowd scenes, but I think that all has to change. We have to go in and change things based on what we can and cannot do when production resumes. I guarantee you that'll allow us to come up with something we didn't come up with before, so maybe it's 75, 80 percent of the original scripts, and maybe 15, 20 percent new stuff?"

That question of how production will resume has hung over the TV industry in recent weeks, with executives trying to hypothesize what social distancing measures and extra cleaning would be required. Wallace argued that those social distancing guidelines might impact the way certain scenes among the show's ensemble are staged, ruling out the option of having all of Team Flash in the same room.

"We'll have to do some of the same things," Wallace added. "In scenes in the finale where we usually have everyone in the room, I don't know if we'll have all nine series regulars anymore."

Even with all of these logistical issues, Wallace has argued that having Season 6 cut short is actually a relief, as it provides an interesting creative challenge for the future ahead.

"Ironically, I'm relieved," Wallace told ComicBook.com last month. "I'll tell you why. When I break the seasons of The Flash, each graphic novel is broken down like a movie, what I think my master plan," Wallace said. "So, like a good movie, it has an act one, act two and an act three. Well, the end of this season because of production stopping will be the end of act two of our movie, which is a perfect point to break your story because there's a huge cliffhanger and there's a hero at his lowest point. To get now, you finally see the light at the end of the tunnel. So, it actually was very fortunate for us, even though it was very sad to see production end and not be able to get to what is essentially act three of our movie. When we come back, not only are you presenting the ending in a house of fire, but where we lead this year's cliffhanger isn't just an ordinary episode."