Team Flash may be losing three major members in The Flash season 7 – but that may actually be a good thing for Grant Gustin’s Barry Allen. It was recently reported that Carlos Valdez and Tom Cavanagh, who play Cisco Ramon and Harrison Wells respectively, are leaving the show at the end of the season.
Since the death of Nash in the season 7 premiere, Barry’s team has been operating without a Wells. A version of Wells will continue to have a recurring presence for a while, but that’s about to come to an end. Team Flash will also have to part ways with Cisco at the end of the season. Another character who may not be around much is Danielle Panabaker’s Killer Frost. In The Flash season 7, episode 11, titled “The People V. Killer Frost," Frost was sentenced to life in prison for the crimes she committed before becoming a superhero. At the end of the episode, Caitlin was shown to be devastated by Frost’s imprisonment.
If The Flash doesn’t undo this twist by finding a way to get her out of prison, Team Flash will be down three major members in season 8, two of which are Barry's most important allies when he’s out in the field. With Elongated Man (Hartley Sawyer) gone, Barry now relies primarily on Cisco's Mecha-Vibe and Frost for help when he fights metahuman criminals. Losing them will be a massive blow to Team Flash. However, the team having its lineup diminished could hurt it at first, but it’s possible that Barry will grow stronger from this change.
For so long, Barry has depended on assistance from people like Elongated Man, Killer Frost, and Vibe when he heads into battle. That’s in contrast to how he had to operate in season 1. During that time, he was the only main character who was a superhero. And despite having no experience in fighting crime, Barry had to take down metahuman after metahuman without anyone else fighting at his side. He did have Cisco, Caitlin, and Reverse-Flash (disguised as Harrison Wells), talking him through certain situations and guiding him, but in actual combat, he was on his own.
There’s a big difference between those days and what’s happening now. It’s understandable for Barry to need allies when faced with supremely powerful threats, but lately, he has struggled a great deal against most of his metahuman opponents. He tends to lose one-on-one fights, and sometimes even with Team Flash on his side, he still can’t prevail. It’s reached a point where Barry has had to depend on his enemies’ own sense of compassion, as such was the case with Mirror Master and Abra Kadabra.
Considering that the season 7 Flash is much more powerful than he was at the beginning of the series, it would make sense if he experienced greater success against his villains now than he did then, but that’s not the way things have been going. That being said, he can still get back to where he needs to be. Losing a significant chunk of his team can force Barry Allen to get back to basics and rely on himself and his ingenuity to defeat any threats he faces. The Flash could of course replace one of the departing team members with Allegra (Kayla Compton) or a new hero, but it would better for that not to happen. Without other superpowered allies around, Barry will have no choice but to pick up the slack and remind everyone that he can be a solo hero.