After debuting as Barry Allen in the middle of Arrow Season 2, Grant Gustin led The Flash for nine seasons, with his tenure as the Scarlet Speedster coming to an end on May 24, 2023. Nearly two and a half years later, Gustin admitted that The CW series’ final episode was not the sendoff for the show he’d hoped it’d be. Despite that, though, there was one silver lining that came with how filming “A New World, Part Four” worked out.
Grant Gustin recalled his experience filming The Flash series finale while sitting in on a SpaceCon panel (via X user @SnatchingTasha), first starting off with how the original plans for the episode needed to be changed after he got sick. As the actor explained:
We had to change parts of that script. This was two years into COVID, and I had not gotten it. And I got COVID a week and a half before we wrapped. I kept testing positive, and I couldn’t come back to work. They shut down for a day or two, and they reworked some of it. I missed three or four days of filming, at least.
For a TV episode, three to four days is a solid chunk of time, and for this to happen on The Flash’s final episode (which was inspired by shows like The Office and Lost) must have stung especially hard. But health and safety comes first, and one of the ways the script was reworked was scrapping Gustin from reprising his second biggest character on the series. He continued:
I was supposed to be in the scene with the prosthetic scar and make-up, with all the bad guys, when it was Savitar in the suit. That was supposed to be me as Savitar. There was other stuff that happened, too; my stunt double got some stuff, we shot around him.
At the beginning of The Flash series finale, Eddie Thawne, who’d become Cobalt Blue, snatched past versions of speedster baddies Reverse-Flash, Zoom, Godspeed and Savitar to battle Team Flash. Savitar, of course, was the time remnant of Barry’s who served as Season 3’s main antagonist. While Tobin Bell retuned to vocally reprise Savitar, The Flash crew had to forgo showing showing the armored villain unmasked and making up Gustin to have the “pizza face,” as Eobard Thawne once described it.
Despite these setbacks, Grant Gustin was touched by the last scene he shot on The Flash. This was also the series’ last scene, with Barry Allen running through the streets of Central City, as seen at the top of the page. Gustin concluded:
My last day of work was alone on a green screen, which also felt right — like it was kind of heartbreaking. I also spent so much time in the suit on green screen, talking to nobody! It felt right, and the last shot I shot was the last shot of the series, Barry running, and pushing it in on him, just looking satisfied, and that was a cool last shot to get.
Prior to this moment, Barry Allen unleashed a lightning bolt to share his speed with Avery Ho, Max Mercury and Jess Chambers. We’ll just have to imagine what having these three new speedsters running around Central City looks like, but I’m glad Grant Gustin found this silver lining in the midst of these disappointing, but necessary changes. You may also recall there was a time that Gustin approved of the fan theory that Barry would become the very bolt of lighting that gave him his powers, but Showrunner Eric Wallace convinced him this wasn’t the way to go.
The Flash can still be streamed with a Netflix subscription if you’re in the mood to revisit its nine-season run, as are Arrow, Legends of Tomorrow, Supergirl and Black Lightning. Batwoman, as well as Arrowverse-adjacent shows like Superman & Lois and Stargirl, can be accessed with an HBO Max subscription.
