Carlos Valdes not returning for The Flash series finale: 'It was really heartbreaking'

The Flash series finale is bringing back every main cast member who was there from the beginning — except for one.

EW can exclusively reveal that Carlos Valdes will not be returning for next week's series finale. "I did consider it," Valdes tells EW in our latest cover story. "Honestly, there was no way to make it happen with regards to my schedule and just all the different creative ventures and life circumstances that I was trying to juggle at that time."

Valdes explains that Hulu's musical romantic comedy Up Here was one of the projects he was filming at the time The Flash was in production on its final season. "I couldn't really make it work, which was really heartbreaking to me because I thought, if I decided to step away from the show, at the very least I have to be there for the finale to round this thing out and to really honor the full circle-ness of it," he adds. "It was really heartbreaking to not be able to make it work."

Katie Yu/The CW Carlos Valdes on 'The Flash'

When The Flash debuted Oct. 7, 2014, Valdes was a series regular, playing Team Flash's tech genius Cisco Ramon. Halfway through the first season, Cisco's status as a metahuman was revealed, and he went on to ultimately become superhero Vibe in later seasons. And after season 7, Cisco left Central City (and the series) with his girlfriend Kamilla (Victoria Park).

Valdes hopes that, even though fans don't get to see Cisco in the series finale, that he's still with Kamilla and they're living happily ever after. "Cisco deserves the very best. Cisco deserves happiness. And I think more than anything, Cisco deserves a successful romantic life," Valdes says. "I'd love to see him really be rewarded in so far as his relationship with Kamilla paying off. I don't know if that means a wedding or something like that, but he had so many romantic tribulations throughout the course of the show, it would be nice just to see him really earn that payoff because he's a softie and he's a romantic. I feel like he deserves to get his."

Looking back on his decision to exit The Flash after seven years, Valdes admits it was "pretty complicated" for him. "I really did feel like a heavy tug inside me of just fan service and really trying to honor the show by sticking with it and seeing it through," he says. "But ultimately, I had to do what was best for me and my mental health. And I really just felt like I hit my spot with that show where I gave it everything that I was capable of giving, and it really felt like the time that made the most sense for me to go off and do other things. Even though it was a really tough decision for me, you have one life to live. Life is too short. I have to keep moving. So I really had to follow my personal compass on that one."

While making that choice was difficult in the moment, Valdes has never regretted it. "I made the right call, and that's not to say I didn't have pangs of missing the process and missing the people," he says. "I met some amazing people courtesy of working on that show, and not just my co-stars, but crew members. That really broke my heart, not really being able to wake up in the morning and get to work and see everybody that makes that show possible, hair and makeup and grips and camera. That was really tough. I definitely had those pangs of missing those pieces every now and then."

After leaving The Flash, Valdes felt as if he went through a period of mourning. "Grief comes and goes in waves, and it really was a kind of grief leaving The Flash, especially because it was seven or eight years of my life," he says. "Even though I was resolute in my decision and that maintained itself through to today, I really did feel like I was making the right decision, and I never wavered from that, but I still obviously felt little windows of nostalgia and sentimentality just missing the process and missing those people."

Bettina Strauss/The CW Carlos Valdes on 'The Flash'

That's why he hasn't been watching the series since his exit. "I'm being brutally honest here — I watched [the season 8 premiere] because it was during one of those little waves of nostalgia and it gave me that little juice I was looking for in that moment," the actor says. "But no, I have not been watching the show. It's torture at a certain point. I don't want to watch my friends having fun without me. 'I'm supposed to be having fun with you!'"

He still remembers his last day on set in season 7, because his departure didn't get the normal pomp and circumstance of a series wrap. "I don't like putting pressure on a moment, especially when it's like the last day on set, but honestly, the pressure really did not become as much of a problem as I thought it would because my last day on set was actually pretty anti-climactic," Valdes says. "Just because it was COVID times and COVID protocol was still a relatively new thing with our production, I was kind of robbed of the opportunity to really make a big hug fest out of it."

The way the schedule worked out for his last day also meant that his final scene happened quickly. "I didn't have the last scene of the day — I did this scene with Danielle [Panabaker], and then they had to quickly move locations and move on to other scenes so I didn't really get to luxuriate in the finality of it," he says. "And that was okay with me. I don't like ceremony, I don't like the spotlight. I just want to live my life and die in peace — those are my goals. So that's how my last day went."

Valdes prioritized having smaller, more intimate memories with his coworkers instead to commemorate the moment. "Really the goodbye for me was mostly in the personal interactions that I had outside of work," he says. "I got a chance to have dinner and grab coffee with some of the people that meant the most to me on that show, and that was really where I felt like the chapter was being closed and the feels were coming out and the tears were flowing."

In the years since he left The Flash, Valdes has realized more and more how much of an impact his character had on him. "Playing Cisco, I had to really get in touch with a youthfulness and an optimism that it's sometimes tough for me to get in touch with as a person, and it's definitely something that I feel like we need in this time, in this day and age, in this climate," he says. "It's a quality about him that I miss. It's like when the cameras roll and I have a Cisco graphic tee on and I have those sneakers on and I can feel how long my hair is, when all of those components are in place, I feel that energy, that positivity, and that vivaciousness. And I still feel little vestiges of that from him. I definitely miss putting on that suit, so to speak."

In talking with his former costars, Valdes kept hearing rumors that the show was likely ending, but it took a while for the official call to come through. "Every year for the last couple of years, there was an energy in the air that maybe we're winding down, this is a little victory lap moment, and that always changed," he says. "It always felt very sporadic — it'd be, 'This is the last year,' or, 'Maybe this is the last.' It wasn't until I actually saw it on the internet that I was like, 'Wow, it's actually coming to a close.'"

When he realized that the series would end with season 9, it took him a long time to process how he felt about it. "It just took time to sink in; it really is the end of an era and the end of a whole chapter of life for so many of us," he says. "It wasn't really until the final season started to wrap up that I found myself texting my costars and just really tapping into the sentimental spot that the show hits for me. I suddenly found myself getting sappy with them."

Robert Falconer/The CW Carlos Valdes as Cisco Ramon and Grant Gustin as Barry Allen on 'The Flash'

Valdes also feels "incredibly humbled" that, as the last remaining Arrowverse series, the interconnected shared TV universe is ending with The Flash.

"Our show in certain respects felt a little like the show that could, especially at the beginning when we got all of this acclaim that I never predicted or anticipated," he says. "So I'm humbled in that sense, but there's also a little bit of a cheeky part of me that's like, it kind of makes sense that Flash is the one to take it to the finish line. But I'm biased. I love that show. I loved being a part of that show. That's one of the reasons I'm so grateful to [creator Greg] Berlanti — it's really his genius and his commitment to making these kinds of stories and giving space for them. I feel so fortunate to have been a part of it."

But he's also quick to clarify that he's wary of how the Arrowverse and all its massive crossover events have influenced the TV landscape as a whole, because they were constantly pulling off the impossible to make those happen. "I have mixed feelings about it, to be completely honest with you," he says. "I'm so honored and so grateful that we played a significant part in this evolution of storytelling on TV. But also I feel guilty that I'm subjecting future TV shows to the nuisance of having to schedule a crossover episode of anything."

Valdes laughs before adding, "I mean, I wouldn't wish that on my worst enemy. It's really torture, just from a scheduling standpoint and having to make it work with different crews and stuff like that. It's fun and there's a lot of cool interactions that happen as a result of it, but let's not forget that logistically it is a hell of a nightmare."

The Flash series finale airs Wednesday, May 24, at 8 p.m. ET/PT on the CW.

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