The Flash (season 6)
The sixth season of the American television series "The Flash", which is based on the DC Comics character Barry Allen / Flash, premiered on The CW on October 8, 2019. The season follows Barry as he navigates through the Crisis and the emergence of Bloodwork and Eva McCulloch. It is set in the Arrowverse, sharing continuity with the other television series of the universe, and is a spin-off of "Arrow". The season is produced by Berlanti Productions, Warner Bros. Television, and DC Entertainment, with Eric Wallace serving as showrunner. The season was ordered in January 2019 , and was originally planned to have 22 episodes. Filming began that July, and production was shut down in March 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic, leaving the season with only 19 episodes. Grant Gustin stars as Barry, with principal cast members Candice Patton, Danielle Panabaker, Carlos Valdes, Hartley Sawyer, Danielle Nicolet, Tom Cavanagh, and Jesse L. Martin also returning from previous seasons, while LaMonica Garrett was promoted to series regular from his guest status in season five. They are joined by new cast member Efrat Dor while former series regular Keiynan Lonsdale makes a guest appearance. The series was renewed  for a seventh season on January 7, 2020. Episodes. <onlyinclude></onlyinclude> Production. Development. The series was renewed for a sixth season by The CW on January 31, 2019, along with a 22-episode order. In March 2019, it was announced that Eric Wallace would replace Todd Helbing as showrunner for the season. Writing. The season is split in two halves, each having their own self-contained Big Bad story. Each half is referred to by the producers as a "Graphic Novel", the first one is titled "Blood and Truth", and the second one titled "Reflections and Lies". The split  was done to avoid inducing fatigue by keeping one Big Bad for 22 episodes, as previous seasons had done. Wallace felt episode 19, which became the season finale because of the COVID-19 pandemic, worked in the series' favor because it had "a big cliffhanger" that was "a good pause point". The remaining three episodes, which had been written, will become the first three episodes of season seven. Wallace conceded there may be a few small adjustments made based on how the pandemic would affect shooting, but said Eva McCulloch’s story "is on a very specific trajectory that we want  to honor and finish." Wallace continued that he thought having these three episodes start season seven was "making it stronger because it's forcing us to look at these two separate things — which is the end of Eva's story and the beginning of the next villain's story and how he relates to Barry and Iris —" and making a strong connection between them. Casting. Main cast members Grant Gustin, Candice Patton, Danielle Panabaker, Carlos Valdes, Hartley Sawyer, Danielle Nicolet and Jesse L. Martin return as Barry Allen / Flash, Iris West-Allen, Caitlin Snow / Frost, Cisco Ramon, Ralph Dibny / Elongated  Man, Cecile Horton, and Joe West. Tom Cavanagh also returns as a regular, portraying Nash Wells, another doppelgänger of his character Harrison Wells. Cavanagh also returns as Eobard Thawne / Reverse Flash. Valdes also portrayed Cisco's Earth-19 doppelganger "Echo" in the episode "Kiss Kiss Breach Breach". Sendhil Ramamurthy was cast in a recurring role as Ramsey Rosso / Bloodwork, the Big Bad of the season's first half. Efrat Dor appears as a series regular in the second half of the season as Eva McCulloch. Design. The season introduces a new Frost costume which has a more vibrant blue color scheme  than the older costume, exposes the shoulders and features a chest emblem shaped like an ice crystal. Filming. Production for the season began on July 2, 2019, in Vancouver, British Columbia, and was expected to conclude on April 6, 2020. However, on March 13, 2020, production was shut down due to the COVID-19 pandemic. 90% of the planned 20th episode was filmed by that time, with one more day of filming anticipated to complete it. Though it was initially planned for production on the rest of the season to resume later in the year, the remaining episodes were ultimately not  filmed as part of the sixth season. Arrowverse tie-ins. At the end of the 2018 Arrowverse crossover "Elseworlds", the follow-up crossover was revealed to be "Crisis on Infinite Earths" based on the comic book of the same name. The crossover took place over five episodes–three in December 2019 and two in January 2020. Release. Broadcast. The season premiered on October 8, 2019, in the United States on The CW. It was initially set to run for 22 episodes, but as production on the season could not continue due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the nineteenth episode was later  announced as the season finale. Reception. Critical response. The review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes reported a 85% approval rating for the sixth season with an average rating of 6.89/10, based on 5 reviews. Accolades. ! | 2020 ! | 2021 References. General references