As first announced in May 2021, Carlos Valdes left The Flash as a series regular after season 7, episode 12, titled Good-Bye Vibrations.
Released in June 2021, the episode opened with Cisco Ramon (Carlos Valdes) and Kamilla Hwang (Victoria Park) finally telling Team Flash that they were leaving Central City for San Francisco. But Barry Allen (Grant Gustin), Iris West-Allen (Candice Patton), and Caitlin Snow (Danielle Panabaker) didn’t have much time to digest the news, as a new version of Rainbow Raider (Jona Xiao) wreaked havoc in Central City and they must all team up one final time to save the city.

Why did Carlos Valdes leave The Flash?
Ahead of his exit, Carlos Valdes talked to ComicBook.com and was asked why he decided to leave the CW series. “This is a heavy question,” said the actor, who has been part of the show since it launched back in 2014. “[But] I felt like there was a perfect kind of synergy between Cisco’s (Carlos Valdes) trajectory and my trajectory as a person.”
Valdes continued: “[Showrunner] Eric Wallace has sort of been weaving in these new energies into the show, and they’re amazing energies, honestly, because they don’t just revitalize the energy of the narrative, they’re also kind of revitalizing our cast dynamics in a really interesting way. But I think Cisco has always sort of had this seed in him of not really feeling too sure about the responsibility of being on this team, I think, and that’s the seed that was hinted at when he chose to sort of take the cure and leave his powers behind, which drew a lot of controversy.”
As some fans of The Flash had probably noticed, Cisco Ramon was moving toward the decision of leaving the team for the past couple of seasons. And much like his character, Valdes implied that he had long been considering departing the series to seek new acting opportunities. The actor, however, finally made up his mind to exit the show after it started to welcome new characters like Chester P. Runk (Brandon McKnight).
“I think his (Cisco’s) decision to sort of step away and build his own thing and sort of have more of his own thing with Kamilla, I think the new energy in the story, the new people on the team made it easier for him to reach that decision,” Valdes said. “And you know, Cisco, he’s very proud of the work he does, very proud of his tech. He’s very proud of his suits. And so I think when Chester came along, he saw somebody that was so uniquely equipped to take on those responsibilities and those specialties that, I think, enabled him to come to that decision.”
“And similarly, for me, seeing the sort of, for lack of a better term, new blood come into our show, that helped me reach my decision, too,” Valdes added. “I eventually, at a certain point, realized like ‘Oh, I’m not scared to move on anymore because the show is such a strong show that sort of new ensemble will lift it and make it better than it used to be.’”
Valdes’ exit from the show was announced along with the departure of his fellow original The Flash cast member Tom Cavanagh. In a statement from Wallace at that time, the showrunner said that the series is open to bringing back both actors for guest appearances in the show at a later time.
“Tom and Carlos have been an integral part of our show for seven seasons, and will be greatly missed,” Wallace said in a statement to Deadline in May 2021. “Both are incredible talents who created beloved characters that fans and audiences around the world have come to love. Which is why we are happily keeping the door open for return appearances.”
True enough, Valdes returned for the two-episode season 7 finale of The Flash, which aired in July 2021.
Valdes didn’t come back for the show’s season 8, but there’s a great chance that fans will see him reprise his role as Cisco in the upcoming ninth and final season of The Flash, which is set to premiere on Wednesday, February 8th, 2023 at 8 p.m. ET on The CW.
About Carlos Valdes
Carlos Valdes is a Colombian-American actor and singer, best known for his role as Cisco Ramon on The CW’s The Flash. Though born in Cali, Colombia, Valdes was raised in Miami, Florida in the United States by the age of 5, and moved to Marietta, Georgia at the age of 12.
Valdes studied at the University of Michigan with other actors from the theater group StarKid Productions, including Emmy winner Darren Criss (American Crime Story). As a member of StarKid Productions, Valdes co-wrote 2009’s musical Me and My Dick and played the bass for that show as well as for the infamous Harry Potter parody, A Very Potter Musical.
From 2009 to 2011, Valdes appeared in several theatrical productions like High School Musical and The Wedding Singer. After graduating from college in 2011, he became a part of the national tour of Jersey Boys. He also played the role of Andrej in the Broadway musical Once from 2013 to 2014, just before making his first appearance as Cisco Ramon in The CW’s Arrowverse.
Valdes shouldn’t be confused with his namesake Carlos Enrique Valdés Parra, a Colombian former professional footballer who was famous for playing for Independiente Santa Fe from 2015 to 2016.
How old is Carlos Valdes?
Carlos Valdes is currently 33 years old. He was born on April 20th, 1989.
What is Carlos Valdes doing now?
After leaving The Flash as a regular cast member after the show’s seventh season, Carlos Valdes recurred as Paul Magallanes in the political thriller Gaslit, which aired on Starz from April to June 2022. He made his first appearance in the show in the third episode.

Valdes will be next seen on Hulu’s musical romantic series Up Here. Set in New York City in the waning days of 1999, Up Here follows the extraordinary story of one ordinary couple, Lindsay and Miguel, as they fall in love and discover that the single greatest obstacle to finding happiness together might just be themselves – and the treacherous world of memories, obsessions, fears, and fantasies that lives inside their heads.
Valdes will play the role of Miguel, while actress Mae Whitman (Good Girls) will portray Lindsay. Described as sensitive and thoughtful, with an artistic sensibility and a romantic streak, Miguel has always struggled with the feeling that he doesn’t quite belong. But after a cataclysmic breakup, Miguel has decided to reinvent himself, burying his feelings and ditching a promising career as a video game concept artist for the lucrative world of investment banking, determined never to get hurt again.
Carlos Valdes’ movies and TV shows
In addition to starring as Cisco Ramon in different Arrowverse series and key roles in the abovementioned Gaslit and Up Here, Carlos Valdes was also one of the cast members of the 2019 miniseries Wayward Guide for the Untrained Eye, in which he played the recurring role of Dr. Henry Edwards.
He also appeared in a number of short films, including 2018’s Tom and Grant and 2019’s The Stew.

Who is Cisco Ramon on The Flash?
After making his television debut as Cisco Ramon (Carlos Valdes) in a 2014 episode of Arrow, Carlos Valdes was announced as one of the original main cast members of the latter’s first-ever spin off series, The Flash.
Introduced as an engineering genius, Cisco was part of the S.T.A.R. Labs team, along with Dr. Harrison Wells (Tom Cavanagh) and Dr. Caitlin Snow (Danielle Panabaker), that helped Barry Allen (Grant Gustin) with his newfound superpowers in the show’s freshman run.

In the following season, Cisco was later revealed to have metahuman powers of his own and took on the moniker Vibe.
Is Cisco from The Flash Mexican?
No. Cisco Ramon (Carlos Valdes) from The Flash is not Mexican. He, however, has Hispanic roots, as it was mentioned in an episode that he came from a Puerto Rican family.
How did Cisco get his powers?

Like most meta-humans in The Flash, Cisco Ramon (Carlos Valdes) got his powers from the explosion of S.T.A.R. Labs’ particle accelerator. He, however, wasn’t aware of his powers until nearly two years had passed since the accident.
Valdes’ version of the superhero Vibe can manipulate dimensional energy, generate vibrational blasts, and travel from one dimension to another. However, after Team Flash defeated Cicada, Cisco decided to take a meta-human cure of his own invention so he could live a normal life with his lover Kamilla (Victoria Park). Though his powers were later restored by the Monitor during the Anti-Monitor Crisis, he lost them again for the second time when the new multiverse was created.
What happened to Cisco? Did Cisco die?

No. Cisco Ramon (Carlos Valdes) didn’t die. He and Kamilla simply moved to another city at the end of season 7, episode 12. Due to his fear of working at S.T.A.R. Labs with the next generation of heroes while everyone else on the original Team Flash was changing and growing, Cisco decided to leave Central City and become the next Director of Technology and Science for A.R.G.U.S. in Star City. Before he left Team Flash, Cisco passed on his responsibilities at S.T.A.R. Labs to Chester P. Runk (Brandon McKnight).