SPOILER ALERT: The following story contains details from Tuesday’s episode of The Flash.
It was the end of an era on Tuesday’s episode of The Flash, as the CW series said goodbye to original cast member Carlos Valdes and his tech whiz character, Cisco Ramon.
At the beginning of the episode, titled “Good-Bye Vibrations,” Ramon arranges for a meeting with his Team Flash colleagues, Barry Allen (Grant Gustin) and Dr. Caitlin Snow (Danielle Panabaker), to announce that he and his girlfriend Kamilla (Victoria Park) will be leaving Central City. Both express their readiness, at this stage of their lives, for a new chapter. For Kamila, that means traveling to Miami to put on a gallery show. For Allen’s best friend Cisco, it means taking over Chip Cooper’s (Donny Lucas) job as the Director of Technology and Science of A.R.G.U.S., after Chip leaves to take another gig. Kamilla plans to reunite with Cisco in Star City once her exhibition is done. While Allen and Snow are clearly stunned following Cisco’s announcement, they suppress their emotions, given that they truly want what is best for him. But of course, their muted acknowledgement backfires, leading Cisco to believe that his friends don’t care he’s leaving.
Over the course of the episode, Cisco helps his friends solve one last case involving Carrie Bates, aka “Rainbow Rider 2.0” (Jona Xiao), who steals huge quantities of diamonds and cash and plans to drop them over Shark Stadium using a hijacked blimp. At one point, Cisco finds himself brainwashed and loopy, after being hit with a blast of the meta-human’s euphoria-inducing powers. Later, though, Chester (Brandon McKnight) frees him from his spell, and he manages to keep Bates’ blimp from crashing into the stadium.
The emotional weight of the episode hangs on a scene in which Cisco finally confronts Caitlin and Barry for their less-than-caring response to the news that he is leaving. “Maybe we should just say goodbye now and get it over with,” he tells his friends, who apologize to him and admit that they are barely holding it together. Allen explains that he wishes he could ask his Cisco to stay, but that he couldn’t bring himself to be so selfish. “You’ve been there on every step of this journey. There wouldn’t be a Flash without Cisco Ramon,” says the scientist also known as The Flash. “Cisco, you are a born leader. You’re probably going to be running A.R.G.U.S. in no time.”
“I know,” Cisco says with a smile. “I am a man on a mission.”
Once Bates is taken into custody, he passes the tech torch to Chester, giving him a flash drive carrying all of his software, as well as his Team Flash workshop. “You’re the man now, dog,” Cisco tells him. “I know I’m leaving this place in great hands.”
Later, he gets the ‘surprise party’ he wanted all along, gifting Barry, Caitlin and Joe (Jesse L. Martin) a few of his prized t-shirts as a farewell gift. The festivities continue through a final scene, in which Cisco sings a karaoke version of Lady Gaga’s “Bad Romance” with Barry and Caitlin.
In his time on The Flash, Valdes also took on the identity of Cisco’s meta-human alias Vibe. Additionally, he played Reverb and Echo, his character’s doppelgängers on Earth-2 and Earth-19, respectively. Deadline broke the story in May that Valdes would be exiting the series after seven seasons, along with original cast member Tom Cavanagh.
While tonight’s episode marks the end of Valdes’ series regular arc, he will apparently come back for brief appearances in the final two episodes of the season. The DC superhero drama, developed by Greg Berlanti, Andrew Kreisberg, and Geoff Johns, has already been renewed for an eighth season.