The Flash EP Explains That Savitar Reveal

This article contains spoilers for Tuesday night's episode of The Flash.

Savitar's identity has finally been revealed on The Flash, and it's a doozy. It turns out that the evil speedster who will kill the love of Barry's life is actually... Barry?

The show's executive producers promised that the Savitar reveal would be the biggest twist yet, and, for many fans, they delivered. The idea of having the hero also be the villain is unexplored territory for the show, and brings in a new dynamic that previous villains haven't. According to executive producer Andrew Kreisberg, despite some fans' assertions that the writers were just making it up as they went along, the plan was always for Savitar to be a future version of Barry. "The idea that the darkest villain we could come up with was actually a very damaged version of our hero was interesting and fresh to us," he told Entertainment Weekly. "We're not only competing with all the stuff that we've done on Flash, but we're always competing with everything we've done on all the other shows. So to have our lead actor be both the hero and the villain isn't something we've done before, so that was exciting for us as storytellers."

Some fans may not have been surprised by the reveal, although many were thrown off by last week's misdirect hint that Savitar was actually Ronnie Raymond. Still, for eagle eyed (and eared) viewers, there were plenty of clues hinting that Savitar was a future version of Barry– there just weren't any hints as to why he turned bad. Kreisberg says that answers on this front are coming in the next few weeks, teasing that the future version of Barry is "heavily scarred." (Literally.)

This is something that will also resonate with present day Barry, who finds sympathy for the villain, who lost the support system that the hero relies on so much. "In an upcoming episode, when Barry is talking about Savitar, he says that so many of these bad guys that we've fought, I didn't understand why they were doing what they were doing," Kreisberg said. "They just seemed to be filled with so much hate and anger and did terrible things, I would look at them and be like, 'Why are you doing this?' But when Barry looks at Savitar, he sees it and he kind of understands it." This difference helps separate Savitar from the rest of the show's villains for the viewer as well, giving a new dynamic to the third epic speedster that Barry has had to face. "It creates an interesting paradigm because Savitar has probably done as much, if not more, to hurt them as any villain they've ever come up against, and yet Barry has a measure of sympathy for him," Kresiberg said.

Having Savitar be a future version of Barry also provides a further acting showcase for Grant Gustin, who has been a fan favorite for his fun but nuanced portrayal of the show's titular hero. Kreisberg says that Gustin continued to blow everyone away as he was playing in Savitar scenes opposite himself, with the EP saying that Gustin made the future Flash "a very distinct character." "If everything Grant has done up until now, including the musical, hasn't blown you away with his talent, I think when you see scenes of him and Savitar together, you're really going to be blown away because he's found a whole new speed for him," he said.

The Flash airs on Tuesdays at 8 p.m. on The CW. While we wait to learn more about Savitar's motivations, see how the cast should really look based on the comics.