The Flash left off on one heck of a cliffhanger in December, and based on everything we know about the rest of Season 3, the show is only ramping up from there.

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To preview The Flash's winter return on Tuesday, January 24th, executive producer Aaron Helbing got on the phone with IGN to tease the rest of the season. Coming off the massive Arrowverse crossover and reveal that Savitar kills Iris in the future, the second half of the season will include a trip to Gorilla City , the return of Black Flash and several dearly departed characters , a team up with Supergirl and -- of course -- many trips into the future to try to find a way to save Iris.Read on for our full interview with Helbing, in which he calls the return of Gorilla Grodd "one of the coolest things I've ever been a part of."

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We get to it pretty quickly. The reason why is because Barry has learned, especially this season, that keeping secrets can essentially destroy your relationships with all the ones that you love. Because they're moving in together and he wants to have a relationship and a future with Iris, he feels like he has to tell her the truth so that they can take on the challenge together.Because Barry's so focused on saving Iris and saving the team, I think as any person would, they'll do whatever it takes to save the person they love, and the rest of it be damned. But of course it is The Flash, and so there will be consequences that will play out. I don't want to get into specifics, but yeah, Barry's going to continue to try to change the future in many different instances, and as he does he is going to get more and more information that will eventually hopefully help him prevent Iris from being killed by Savitar.I mean, it's definitely going to play out throughout most of the rest of the season, but we're still going to make some pit stops here and there, tell some other stories. But saving Iris and changing the future's always going to be on the forefront of everyone's minds.Yeah, pretty much. They're very big episodes. Ever since last season, we sent him to Earth-2, and we'll find out where he ended up in Gorilla City and what his role is within the construct of Gorilla City and all the gorillas. But what I can tell you is they're very big episodes. We're swinging for the fences again. There are some sequences that are incredibly emotional and just straight up epic, epic, epic -- I mean, I can't believe we're allowed to do it on television. It honestly, to me, is one of the coolest things I've ever been a part of.The character moments, the visual effects, the choreography -- just all of it, I've never seen anything like it. I mean, it is phenomenal.You'll spend most of the [first] episode in Gorilla City. The team is up against some very formidable gorillas.Alternative universes aren't going to play into that big of deal. It's pretty focused on the specific future events that Cisco vibes Barry to. The beauty of Cisco's power is he can go into any dimension, any time period and relive that event, and while being in that event they can pick up on clues that can hopefully stop Savitar from killing Iris.Helbing declines to answer.Basically because they played such vitally important parts in Barry's life and in the lives of the team that they always make us realize that there are stakes in this world, that people do heroic things but at the end of the day they're dead because of the heroic act that they did. That always helps us remember that to these characters, this is their lives, this is a real world to them, and so whenever we have an opportunity to let not only our characters but the audience remember that, that helps us tell very satisfying stories.That's a good question. Right now we're just focused on The Flash. I can't necessarily speak to what Arrow's breaking.He's a realization of what can happen to Barry when you time travel, when you try to change specific events. He always serves as a reminder that you're always playing with fire when you're trying to travel into other dimensions or future or past or anything like that.Yes.Honestly [laughs] I'm so focused on making sure we stick the landing for Season 3, and since it just happened, I haven't really thought about what Season 4 would be. Obviously we're very thrilled and excited to be able to continue to this show that we all passionately love. It's just kudos to Warner Bros. and The CW, because they continue to have tremendous faith in us and let us tell these stories that we all love to tell.

The Flash airs Tuesdays on The CW at 8 p.m. ET/PT.Terri Schwartz is Entertainment Editor at IGN. Talk to her on Twitter at @Terri_Schwartz