The Flash Season 7 Release Date, Cast, And Plot - What We Know So Far

Beginning in 2014, The Flash was The CW's first spinoff from their very successful Arrow superhero series. Based around the character of Barry Allen (Grant Gustin), known by his alter ego the Flash, the series follows his origin as a superhero as he adjusts to his new power of super speed. Barry is helped along by the intelligent Dr. Harrison Wells (Tom Cavanagh), his friends Cisco Ramon (Carlos Valdes) and Caitlin Snow (Danielle Panabaker), his adoptive father Joe West (Jesse L. Martin), and his love, Iris West-Allen (Candice Patton).

Following great success, The Flash has gone on to have five more seasons, with a seventh on its way in early 2021. The most recent season premiered on October 9, 2019. While it was initially planned to have the normal amount of 22 episodes, The Flash season 6 was cut short due to the coronavirus and the shutdown of all television productions, forcing the season to adjust and make its 19th episode the season finale. Thankfully, fans already had a season 7 renewal at this time to hold onto, which was granted by The CW back in January 2020.

With television productions finally starting back up again, fans are eager to reunite with Barry and the team, and luckily, they won't have to wait long. Here's everything we know about the upcoming seventh season of The Flash.

With season 6 of The Flash ending on an unexpected cliffhanger because of the shutdown, fans are desperate to find out what's going to happen to Barry, Iris, and the rest of the crew. They won't have to wait much longer. Although earlier reports pegged the season 7 premiere date at February 23, 2021, we now know the fresh round of Flash will kick off on March 2. After the premiere, episodes will release weekly, as is normal for The CW series.

After being shut down for months and having to end season 6 three episodes early, The Flash was finally able to start production on season 7 in October 2020, which put them on track for the early 2021 premiere date. Although there was a halt in production in late November due to a positive test for COVID-19 among the crew (via Deadline), the new season still appears to be on track. So for those who have been patiently waiting for the speedster to run back onto their screens, mark your calendars for March.

As for the other Arrowverse shows, the second season of Batwoman, featuring Javicia Leslie taking over as the caped crusader, premiered on January 17, while the new series Superman & Lois, featuring Tyler Hoechlin and Elizabeth Tulloch continuing their roles from the crossover events, will premiere on February 23.

For The Flash season 7, Gustin, Cavanagh, Valdes, Panabaker, Martin, and Patton are all returning. Danielle Nicolet, who plays Cecile Horton and was upped to a series regular in season 5, will be coming back, along with new series regulars Kayla Compton and Brandon McKnight, who play Allegra Garcia and Chester P. Runk, respectively. Victoria Park will likely return as Kamilla Hwang, and John Wesley Shipp will also reportedly be back as Jay Garrick, as Shipp told Den of Geek that the character survived the "Crisis on Infinite Earths" crossover event, and that The Flash showrunner "Eric Wallace has said that he does want to talk to me about some ideas about Jay Garrick going forward."

For season 7, cast member Hartley Sawyer, who played Ralph Dibney, will not be returning after offensive tweets came to light. Wallace told EW that Ralph will be recast to allow the show to finish up his storyline with the team and love interest Sue Dearbon (Natalie Dreyfuss), but that "the character won't be a big part of season 7." Thankfully, Ralph's powers as Elongated Man allow him to change his appearance at will, giving the show an easy way to transition to a new actor. 

As The Flash season 6 ended early, the planned storyline was unable to fully play out as expected. The first half of the season leads into the "Crisis on Infinite Earths" crossover event with the other Arrowverse shows, as Barry and his friends try to stop the superhero's predicted death. Of course, Barry manages to survive the Crisis, and the rest of the season revolves around Eva McCulloch (Efrat Dor), a quantum engineer trapped in an alternate dimension called the "Mirrorverse." Eva tricks Iris into the Mirrorverse and enacts her plan to get revenge on her husband, Joseph Carner (Eric Nenninger), leaving Iris trapped and the team working to save her. Initially, the show planned to wrap up this storyline in season 6, but because of the pandemic, the last three episodes of season 6 will now serve as the first three episodes of season 7.

At DC FanDome, Wallace teased the rest of season 7, hinting that Godspeed, the strange speedster who has appeared sporadically since season 5, will have a big role. He was originally supposed to appear at the end of the season 6 finale as a cliffhanger, but plans obviously changed. At the panel, Wallace stated that "there was a certain speedster who wore a white costume, whose clones kept showing up ... Team Flash has to deal with that, but we never caught the real guy or girl. Let's just say we might find out that mystery this season" (via ComicBook.com). The first teaser for The Flash season 7 was released at the same event, and was followed by the second and final trailer, which dropped on February 2, 2021. 

Be sure to check out the season 7 premiere of The Flash on The CW on March 2, 2021 at 8 PM Eastern, with the streaming premiere to follow on March 3.