The title of tonight’s new episode of The Flash , “The Reverse-Flash Returns,” gives you a hint at what to expect… And yet perhaps not. Because yes, the yellow-suited villain is back, but he doesn’t look like Harrison Wells (Tom Cavanagh) this time, but rather his original, briefly-seen true form, as Eobard Thawne (returning guest star Matt Letscher).

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IGN has an exclusive clip for you from the episode, as Earth 2’s “Harry” (Cavanagh) uses an interesting tactic to get Cisco (Carlos Valdes) to use his Vibe powers – leading to Cisco getting an ominous look at their enemy.Check out the clip!On a recent visit to the set of The Flash, I spoke to Cavanagh about what it’s like playing Earth 2 Wells this season and how The Flash never holds back on story.

Tom Cavanagh in The Flash.

Carlos Valdes and Tom Cavanagh in The Flash.

This is my 19th character, I think! There’s a running tally of characters that I play on this show. It’s not me that has any concerns. I have no trouble keeping them straight. It’s the poor wardrobe department. They’re like “He’s in what? What’s he’s wearing?” There were episodes last year where there was four guys. There was Eobard and Reverse and Harrison and then pre-Eobard Harrison. The poor wardrobe people were like “What’s he wearing? He’s which one?” There was Eobard and then Reverse-Flash who is in the suit, and then there’s Harrison who was, I think the one with Tess, and then there was Wells who was fake Wells. It was a lot to keep track of. We’ve compounded it by adding another Earth to the universe. It’s been enjoyable. I don’t know how many shows you play more than one version of yourself, let alone four or five. As an actor, I think these opportunities -- the portal between Earth 1 and Earth 2 is a tremendous thing. Especially when I was crafting the version I’m playing this year, there’s no reason for him to be similar to the other guy. Why would he be? His voice is different, his demeanor is different, he’s an idiot. Or at least he’s not the kindest human being around. He’s abrasive. He’s intelligent like Harrison Wells of Earth 1 was but a lot more acrimonious and pompous manner and those aren’t very endearing traits which is exactly how I like it. In this show, there’s a lot of instances where empathy is asked for her and not by him.That’s a great question. It’s different when you’re doing a two-hour sprint for your Flash movie - you don’t have to ask those questions. But when you’re running the marathon, the 23 hour marathon, there’s a lot of balls that the writers room have to keep in the air. You don’t want to get overly repetitive. It’s one of the feathers in the cap of the writers room of Greg Berlanti, when they’re crafting this season’s arcs, they’re well aware that this is not a show -- unlike many other hour longs, it doesn’t stand on it’s laurels or have a repetitive formula. We’re not an earth shaking, ground breaking model, but I know, from conversations with Greg where he’s like, “Look, we have a lot to pull from. We don’t really repeat ourselves.” We keep things moving along. last year was a perfect example. In episode two, I get out of the wheelchair and kill a guy. In episode nine I was revealed to be Reverse-Flash. In episode eleven, it’s like “Who is this guy?” In episode fifteen I kill Cisco. We just keep layering stuff on.This is my third show with Greg and I said to him after like, we had Plastique, Captain Cold, so many things in the first five episodes of Season 1, I was like, “Are we at all worried about story? Because we’re just burning through it!" And he was like, verbatim quote, “There's always more story.” Bless him. I think it’s tremendous. The victors in that arrangement are the viewers. Every episode is the comic book. It’s the graphic novel. You open it up and you've got your arc, you’ve got your carrying through story and a lot of action and explosion and intimacy and heart and all that stuff. It’s not a “wait until next week” and the week after and the week after. We believe in giving them the full 60. The audience can be the judge of it but that’s definitely our mandate. It’s fun to be a part of a show like that. That’s why I’m playing all these different characters. It could just be the guy in a wheelchair who has a secret and every seven episodes we tweak that a little bit but that’s not how it is here. For an actor, that’s really enjoyable to do.I’m really looking forward to everybody getting a kick in the can. It’s a great way for an actor to be inventive. It’s a get out of jail free. It’s a lovely hall pass where you get to add on layers that you wish your character had, that doesn’t hold true to the character on Earth 1, but on Earth 2, why not go for it? It’s been really fun for me to have these negative aspects of this guy. It’s good for our show to have this conflict. A lot of people on our show are likable and that’s great but you need other aspects of it, long running aspects of it which are maybe less likable and again, the writers room has done a good job keeping the Reverse-Flash and Harrison Wells and Eobard Thawne on that tightrope. For other people to get that opportunity I think is a good thing for the show and a good thing for the viewers.[Laughs] There was an episode with an improv line where I said, “He’s not Wells. I’m Wells.” He’s totally pissed off that he keeps saying to this guy, “He's not Wells. I’m Wells. I don’t know who this other guy is but he’s not me.” And that’s in another episode, I address it more directly. Which is something to look for. It’s not an accident. When you see that line and your twitter buddy sees that line, it’s there on purpose to answer that very thing you’re talking about.

The Flash: “The Reverse-Flash Returns” airs Tuesday, January 26th at 8:00pm ET/PT on the CW.Eric Goldman is Executive Editor of IGN TV. You can follow him on Twitter at @TheEricGoldman , IGN at ericgoldman-ign and Facebook at Facebook.com/TheEricGoldman