'The Flash' Showrunner Says The Season is Clifford and Marlize DeVoe's Tragic Love Story

This season of The Flash is a love story that has gone awry, showrunner Todd Helbing told ComicBook.com. But while Barry and Iris may have been interrupted before they could say "I do," that doesn't mean it's their tragic love story.

No, the heartbreak is being delivered by Clifford and Marlize DeVoe -- and we saw it in full bloom tonight, as DeVoe turned on his wife, turning his powers on her and freezing Marlize in place as he tried to kill Gypsy.

"Kim is amazing," Helbing said. "Kim [Engelbrecht] and Neil [Sandilands] together are an amazing team, but I think one thing that we didn't realize was how much the emotional story was going to be reliant on Kim. Her performance this whole season has just been mind-boggling. She's so amazing, and to be up on set and watch her do that in person is something to behold. Writing them as a couple, what's so great about The Thinker this season as well is, it's really this love story that goes awry."

The episode actually uses some of the same language tonight that Helbing did when he spoke with us.

"What kind of future do I have if you're not by my side?" DeVoe asked his wife Marlize in tonight's episode, "Therefore She Is."

"Marlize DeVoe is the true believer," Helbing told us. "She was somebody that really wants to fix humanity and she really believes that, but as this season has progressed and DeVoe got more and more intelligent and less and less emotional — that's the reason why he created the Weeper, was he knew that going gin, 'I'm going to needs something to keep my wife by my side.' But I don't think that he even saw how detached emotionally he was going to become and how that was going to affect Marlize and the two of them."

Notice the repetition of the "by my side" phrase. It seems that is the key element of The Thinker's problem with his wife, is keeping her from following her best instincts even as she becomes more and more aware of his evil, Thanos-like plan.

Tonight, though, that didn't work out for him, which leaves him a desperate man with a lot of power and nothing to lose...!

The Flash airs on Tuesday nights at 8 p.m. ET/PT on The CW.