THE FLASH Post-Mortem: Andrew Kreisberg on Thawne’s Backstory, a Big Reveal, and More

[Warning: this post contains spoilers from the “Tricksters” episode of THE FLASH. Please do not read it until you’ve seen the hour.]

THE FLASH shed some light on The Trickster, revealed more of Wells’ backstory, and revealed Barry’s FLASH persona to yet another person.

To shed a little light on what went down, THE FLASH executive producer Andrew Kreisberg spoke with reporters about what went down…

On Thawne/Wells’ real backstory:

While the person we know as Wells is truly Thawne, viewers learned he didn’t start off that way: there was a real Harrison Wells, who was a scientist and had big plans for his future…until Thawne (Matt Letscher) — fresh off of fighting with Future Barry and accidentally killing Barry’s mother in the process — discovered he couldn’t travel back to his time and decided to take over Wells’ body. (Post-a car crash that killed Wells’ love, Tess.)

“We’re calling it genetic camouflage,” Kreisberg said. “He basically stole his body; he basically rewrote his DNA to match Wells’. What happened to Harrison Wells’ real body, and what happened that night, these things are going to start coming out. I know people were concerned the events from episode 15 were erased in episode 16 — what happened in episode 15, not all of it went away, as people are going to find out soon.”

“And Matt Letscher, we worked with on ELI STONE,” he continued. “When [THE FLASH executive producer] Greg [Berlanti] and I came up with [this], because we were working backwards trying to figure out in episode 13, ‘Why wouldn’t the blood show them it’s Wells?’ and we were talking about what if Wells wasn’t Wells? What if he stole Wells’ body? And we both said we should get Matt, who is so great at playing the villain…and we haven’t seen the last of him either.”

Though Thawne took over Wells’ body and mind, there are some effects left of Wells — namely, his love for Tess.

“That’s actually something we were just writing the other day,” Kreisberg said. “He’s had a lot of times where he’s talked about Tess. And one of the things that kind of bled through is Wells’ love for Tess. That Thawne absorbed when he absorbed his body. So that’s a fun thing that’s come through.”

Eddie now knows the truth:

While The Flash’s true identity has been a fairly poorly kept secret thus far, yet another person was let in on the truth this week: in an attempt to dissuade Iris from attracting Wells’ attention by searching for where her mentor went, Joe and Barry told Eddie the truth and convinced him to lie to Iris.

“It’s interesting, for us, part of the fun of Eddie is he’s such a nice guy, he’s such a good guy,” Kreisberg said. “You have the love triangle, but t’s kind of hard to not like Eddie, even though he’s dating Iris. He is a stand-up guy and he clearly cares about her. I think the biggest conflict that’s going to come between them is Barry — whether it’s right or wrong — has made this decision to keep Iris in the dark about things. And Eddie, as always, is the more emotionally in touch character, and is saying, ‘This is ridiculous. By not telling her, you’re actually putting her in more danger.'”

“And that starts to become the conflict between the three men,” he teased. “Because Eddie is not happy with how Barry and Joe have been handling this. And it starts to really impact his relationship with Iris, because there’s this great moment where he says to Barry, ‘How do you lie to people like that?’ And it makes Barry look at himself and think, ‘When did I become such a great liar? I thought of myself as being innocent and pure.’ And it really starts to grate on Eddie and Iris in the next episode. In the next episode, Eddie, Iris, and Barry, plus Felicity and Ray all go out to dinner. Everybody is talking about their feelings and Eddie and Iris get into a fight, Barry is the fifth wheel — it’s fun.”

On the potential return of The Trickster:

The Trickster (and his son) may have been defeated by Team Flash, but the show is hoping to bring back Mark Hamill’s James Jesse/The Trickster in a future episode.

“Yes, that is the plan,” Kreisberg shared. “What’s so fun for us, and why we were so grateful for Mark to be a part of this, [is] because when I sit down and I think about Wentworth Miller (Captain Cold) and Mark in a scene together, the dichotomy of them [and I want to see that]. I think sometimes there’s the tendency to spit out the same villain week in and week out on these kinds of shows. And for us, having people who are so different, and having people who have powers, and having people who are slightly unhinged, but are geniuses. And that was the other reason we wanted to do the Trickster: you have so many villains who have these amazing abilities, either because they’re metahumans or they have this incredibly weaponry. What’s cool about the Trickster on both series is he’s smart. No matter how crazy he is, he’s smart and he thought four steps ahead. And watching the Flash and our team go up against someone brilliant, a lot of times our shows are about how to figure out how to chemically or scientifically or how the Flash can use his powers against someone, but [for him] they had to outthink him. And [by doing that] Wells had to give Barry something he probably didn’t want to let him know he could do.”

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What did you think of tonight’s episode of THE FLASH?

Related:

THE FLASH: Mark Hamill and Andrew Kreisberg Preview the Return of The Trickster
THE FLASH: Tom Cavanagh on ‘Tension and Conflict’ with the Team
THE FLASH: Jesse L. Martin on Geeking Out Over ‘Tricksters’ Guest Mark Hamill
THE FLASH: Grant Gustin, Danielle Panabaker, and Carlos Valdes on Wells’ Secrets

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