11 Years Ago Today, the Arrowverse’s Greatest Villain Was Confirmed With a Perfect Plot Twist

In hindsight, the Arrowverse was one of the most pivotal attempts to bring an entire superhero universe to the TV landscape – and has arguably been the most successful at it (so far). That’s due to a combination of managing to do “authentic” DC comic book adaptations on a TV budget, as well as leaning into more outrageous comic book lore and concepts that were previously deemed not to be “grounded” enough for TV – including Arrow (2012 – 2020), which began with a strict “grounded, realistic” approach, before graduating to more fantastical story arcs.

By the time The Flash premiered on The CW in 2014, the Arrowverse was primed and ready to go “full comic book” with its storylines and tone. The Flash took that creative freedom and ran with it (literally), with a first-season story arc that saw Barry Allen (Grant Gustin) trying to adjust to being a metahuman connected to the all-powerful Speed Force. More importantly, Season 1 of The Flash pulled off a mystery that shook the fandom and used multiple fakeouts to keep internet sleuths guessing until the big reveal.

“The Man in the Yellow Suit” Delivered The Flash’s Greatest Twist

The Flash Season 1 Episode 9, “The Man in the Yellow Suit”, was a game-changer. Up until that point, The Flash had been dangling two main threats over Barry Allen and the S.T.A.R. Labs team: the threat of a mysterious evil speedster, The Reverse-Flash, who appeared sporadically to threaten Barry or steal cutting edge technology; then there was the nefarious presence of S.T.A.R. Labs head Doctor Harrison Wells (Tom Cavanagh), who was revealed to be a spy and manipulator from the future, back in Episode 1.

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The Flash pulled off an impressive double-fakeout: the show made Wells the prime villain suspect right off the bat, then used the next seven episodes to evolve Wells’ character into a complicated antihero, presumably trying to avert the “Crisis” that ends the Flash and forever alters the future. The show fooled everyone in the first half of Episode 9 by including an action sequence where the Reverse-Flash attacks both Harrison Wells and the Central City police. Moments like that, seeing the two figures in the same place at once seemed to drop an ax on all the fan theories about Wells being the Reverse-Flash – until the final scene of Episode 9, where the show revealed that fans can’t even believe their eyes when it comes to speedsters, as being in two places at once is definitely part of their power set.

Tom Cavanagh Was The Flash‘s Secret MVP

…Maybe it wasn’t such a secret, actually: Any fan who watched The Flash knew that Tom Cavanagh was often acting circles around most of his co-stars. The actor was a veteran of both TV (Scrubs, Eli Stone) and film (Freddy vs. Jason, Gray Matters) by the time he took the role in The Flash, and yet, in a lot of ways, Harrison Wells/Reverse-Flash was the first time a lot of viewers got to see Cavanagh really let loose. The actor could effortlessly oscillate between a deep, dramatic persona as Wells and a scene-chewing mania or smoldering menace as Eobard Thawne, the Reverse-Flash.

In fact, there are very few actors (only Liam Neeson in Batman Begins, maybe) who have managed to play both a great mentor and compelling villain for the same hero character. Tom Cavanagh not only had to nail that wide range of character traits, but also did multiple reiterations of that character concept (or new characters) in most of the other Arrowverse shows and spinoffs (Arrow, Supergirl, Legends of Tomorrow, Batwoman, Superman & Lois). By the end of the franchise, Cavanagh seemed like he was centering his entire acting career around his DC Arrowverse presence and was also one of the more charismatic ambassadors for the franchise at conventions and other public appearances. Best of all, he always seemed to enjoy the work, honor the lore he was playing in, and never seemed to take the fan response for granted.

As for the Arrowverse? Well, it’s hard to imagine another moment that was as exciting and shocking as Wells being the Reverse-Flash. Or an episode with a better cliffhanger than “The Man in the Yellow Suit”.

You can currently stream every season of The Flash on Netflix.