It was too difficult for Carlos Valdes to watch The Flash episodes again following his departure.

The former Cisco Ramon/Vibe actor opened up about leaving The Flash with Entertainment Weekly, including what he felt after moving past that stage in his acting career. “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,” Valdes recognized, adding, “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.”

A Flash mainstay between 2014 and 2021, Valdes — who left the show in Season 7 — will not appear in The Flash‘s series finale due to its production conflicting with his work on Hulu’s Up Here. Additionally, despite briefly watching Season 8’s premiere, Valdes has not caught up with the remaining seasons, confessing, “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!'”

The Flash Reaches Its Final Arc

Though Valdes couldn’t return, Season 9 featured several cameos from returning Flash and Arrowverse characters across The CW franchise’s eleven-year run. Batwoman‘s Javicia Leslie played the season’s initial villain Red Death, while Keiynan Lonsdale, David Ramsey, and Stephen Amell reprised their roles as Wally West, John Diggle and Oliver Queen in the episode “It’s My Party and I’ll Die If I Want To.” Most recently, Season 9’s final arc “A New World” saw the return of Jessica Parker Kennedy’s Nora West-Allen, Matt Letscher’s Eobard Thawne, and Season 1’s Rick Cosnett as a revived Eddie Thawne who, in the penultimate episode’s final moments, becomes the Negative Speed Force’s new avatar.

For its series finale, The Flash will not only mark the final appearance of John Wesley Shipp’s Jay Garrick, but multiple Flash villains as well. This includes Tom Cavanaugh’s Reverse-Flash incarnation, Season 2’s Zoom (Teddy Sears), Season 3’s Savitar and Season 7’s Godspeed, though an explanation for their revival is as yet unknown. Post-Flash, The CW’s remaining DC shows on air include Superman & Lois and Gotham Knights, with Ramsey’s Diggle-led spinoff Justice U having recently been canceled. Ezra Miller’s Flash, however, will make their solo film debut next month, with early critic reactions to the DCEU’s The Flash movie at CinemaCon proving overwhelmingly positive.

The Flash‘s series finale airs Wednesday, May 24 at 8 pm EST on The CW.