#The Flash Season 7 Spoilers: How Will the Series Address Hartley Sawyer’s Firing?

The Flash has a difficult task ahead as it heads into its seventh season on The CW.

The series has to bring storylines to a close that kicked off in the pandemic-shortened The Flash Season 6, and find a way to write out Ralph Dibny following Hartley Sawyer’s firing from the series.

Showrunner Eric Wallace is opening up about the plan to say goodbye to the Elongated Man for some time.

“We’re going to treat it like we would if we were writing a comic book graphic novel,” Wallace told Entertainment Weekly.

“We’re giving the Elongated Man a bit of a rest for while. But we will leave the door open.”

“I’m not saying by any means that it’s the end of the character,” Wallace continued.

“In fact, quite the opposite. We just don’t know when he will return, or in what form he will return.”

The plan for now is to have Ralph make an appearance early into the seventh season, but not with Sawyer in the role.

Wallace feels like they need to “honor the character” and help bring some of the storylines to a close before saying goodbye.

“Ralph has to be part of that,” Wallace explained.

“Now thank goodness, Ralph is a guy who can change faces and his appearance in many ways.”

“Without giving any spoilers away, there are a couple of ways that we can have Elongated Man still appear in at least one episode this season to wrap that storyline up, that gets us what we need and still allows fans to say goodbye to the character, at least for the indefinite future.”

Sawyer was officially fired from the series earlier this year for offensive comments made on his Twitter account before he was cast on the series.

“All women should be in sex farms” reads one of the tweets.

“If I had a wife I would beat the hell out of her tonight lol, reads another.

“The only thing stopping me from doing mildly racist tweets is the knowledge that Al Sharpton would never stop complaining about me, the actor said in a different tweet.

“Out at dinner and just exposed myself as a racist, AGAIN,” said another.

Wallace responded on Twitter that Sawyer’s comments “broke my heart and made me mad as hell,” saying that they are of “the larger problem in our country. Because at present, our country still accepts and protects the continual harassment — unconscious or otherwise — terrorizing and brutalizing of Black and Brown people, which is far too often fatal.”

Sawyer apologized for the comments on Instagram.

“I’m not here to make excuses — regardless of the intention, my words matter and they carry profound consequences,” he said.

“And mine can and have caused pain and embarrassment, along with feelings I can only imagine, to supporters and fans, my cast mates, the crew, my colleagues and friends.”

“I owe them all an apology. And I owe each of you an apology. Thank you for holding me accountable.”

The Flash is set to return to The CW in 2021.

Remember you can watch The Flash online right here via TV Fanatic.

Paul Dailly is the Associate Editor for TV Fanatic. Follow him on Twitter.