The Flash gave away its biggest secret(s) of Season 2 in Tuesday's finale: not only is the Man in the Mask Jay Garrick, but Jay Garrick is the doppelgänger of Barry Allen's father, Henry Allen.

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It's a nice bit of poetry for star John Wesley Shipp, who played Barry Allen/ The Flash in the 1990 The Flash series that aired on CBS. Now he's a speedster on the show again, and in a role that seems like it will have major repercussions on the series. Shipp got on the phone to discuss the massive reveal and what it means looking forward to Season 3. Read the full interview below.

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The Man in the Iron Mask on The Flash

The Flash: "The Race of His Life" Photos 20 IMAGES

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Grant Gustin as Barry Allen and John Wesley Shipp as Henry Allen on The Flash

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You know, it's very surreal. I remember after we did the last shot in 1991 and I ripped the gold wings off and threw them in the air -- and Mark Hamill actually retrieved them and still has them -- I was sort of like, "You know what, I will never, ever get into another superhero costume ever again." This just goes to show you never say never, you know? I think what makes this possible for me are a number of things. Number one, the culture has completely changed. Getting into a superhero costume in 2016 is a quite different proposition than it was in 1990, 1991, you know what I mean? People weren't quite comfortable. I as an actor wasn't quite comfortable. Television audiences still weren't sure; "OK, are we supposed to take this seriously or is it supposed to be camp? Which way are we going?"Well, now everybody is on board. Particularly the younger actors, I watch Grant [Gustin] and his ease. He wears his suit like a second skin. There is no hesitation whatsoever on the part of these younger actors who are now wearing superhero costumes because it is part of mainstream culture. They just don't give it a thought. From my perspective having done it 25 years ago when that wasn't the case, when it was a bit of a risk for someone who wanted to consider themselves a serious actor to put on a red foam latex suit with golden ears, it was something of a risk then, but it's not anymore. There's an enormous amount of freedom that comes with that.No. In fact, kudos to the actor who was the Man in the Iron Mask. People were calling me once they found out what I would be doing, and they said, "By the way, have you watched the guy who has been in the iron mask all season? It's uncanny." People who know me very well and know how I use my hands and know how I gesture, they said, "It's like he studied you." I've talked to him, and he actually was told to study three different actors on the show, and I was one of them, and to look at how we gestured, how we moved our hands. And then the day that he filmed his stuff they told him it was me. They told him it was me before they told me it was me! [laughs]I don't know. I didn't ask. I didn't ask.I know. It's like being part of a triple whammy. I was kind of inactive this season, and then all of the sudden right here in the four last episodes to be part of a triple whammy. The one whammy of course is not unexpected: Henry Allen's death. I felt he had, as a character device, served his purpose. He had brought Barry from first having his powers to the point where he's totally comfortable being a superhero. That was not unexpected.When I arrived March 1st up to Vancouver and I had a costume fitting, and the first costume they fitted me for was this sort of ripped up, brown prison-looking suit, and I'm thinking, "Hmm. I haven't been in Iron Heights in a long time, and even when I was it wasn't ripped up. What's this all about?" And then she said, "Of course, the iron mask [props] are done by the art department," and I'm like, "Iron mask?" They're like, "You mean you don't know?" I went and I talked to Grant and Jesse [L. Martin] and they said, "So, I guess you know" -- everybody was very excited -- "I guess you heard what's going on." I said, "Yeah, I'm the Man in the Iron Mask! Who knew?"There was this long pause, and they said, "Is that all you know?" I said, "What do you mean? There's more?" And they went, "Oh yeah. Maybe you'd better call Greg [Berlanti]." Greg, who I have a wonderful relationship with and admire him both as a friend and a colleague, I e-mailed him and I said, "You know, I've been hearing little snippets about characters I may or may not be playing going forward, and I think maybe we better have a conversation." About three minutes later, he and I were on the phone and he laid out this story. What I love about it is it's three-pronged. It's like the one-two-three-knockout. ... Three, which blows my head off, is that it's Jay Garrick.I think it's extremely important. Particularly, when I was watching Legends [of Tomorrow] , and they were announcing that they were going to be dealing with the Justice Society of America and knowing that Jay Garrick was the founding member of the Justice Society of America and that all of these shows are going to be overlapping, it's very important to have him there. It's also really interesting that I got to play Henry Allen, who sort of took Barry from just having his powers to being comfortable with his powers, and now I get to morph into the character that serves to take him from he's a new superhero who fully owns it to whatever the next level is going to be.Back in the comic books I know that Jay Garrick taught Wally West the Speed Force. I did actually more research about Jay Garrick than I did when I found out I was going to play Barry Allen. I didn't really know a lot about him. Given what Andrew [Kreisberg] and Greg are creating, particularly now with Supergirl moving under the umbrella of The CW, we're going to have this great big universe. Of course the original speedster has to be there. I'm blown away.The funny thing is when it was announced I was going to be on this show, everybody said, "Oh, you have to be Jay Garrick," and I was thinking no. I heard about Henry Allen and I thought that's the actor's role. That's the character that has the grit, that has the one-on-one with Barry, that will have the emotional scenes, that will have the vulnerable [moments] unrelated to costumes or superheroes or music or special effects. When everything stopped, it would be the calm, quiet moment that relied on the words and the relationship, and that's the character that I wanted. Now that I played that and proved myself once again as an actor I might be able to have fun.Absolutely. Somebody put it this way: Jay Garrick has no idea the emotional minefield that he's walking into. That says it better than I could. When the iron mask comes off and I turn around and I see Grant's face, of course he plays the scene beautifully. Any scene with any emotional content he plays beautifully. Of course, Jay doesn't know what's wrong. "Oh, what's the matter? I'm Jay, I'm the original Jay Garrick," and [Barry] has to leave the room. Then we have to deal with that. I think the payoff is going to be that Henry was a place that Barry could come when he was really at his most vulnerable and let his guard down. We also were a very tactile relationship, a very huggy father and son. Grant joked, "I've hugged you more than I've hugged my own father!" I think that was an important dynamic for a young man who's father was ripped from him and put in prison when he was 10 years old.Now flash forward and he loses his father and suddenly here's a guy who's put in a mentor position who looks just like his dad. I would think that there would be those moments when he's going to want to relate to Jay, and he's going to want to reexperience the lost moments that he was just beginning to have with his brother. Well, Jay's a completely different person. Jay's not going to understand any of that. I love what Andrew Kreisberg said to me. After the reading, I thought I had gone a little hard in my characterization of Jay at the beginning, and he said, "No, I loved what you did because when you come out of the iron mask, it's clear from the get-go that the person we're dealing with is not Henry Allen, and that makes it even harder on Barry," and he said, "You are under no obligation to make the audience like you at the beginning," which I thought was a fascinating direction.It's also going to give us somewhere to go, because obviously the Golden Age Flash Barry Allen, we're going to forge a relationship. We're going to forge a mentor/mentee relationship. Jay is going to be someone who he goes to in his own way, but it's got to be completely different than the dynamic. We can't just rerun the dynamic of Henry/Barry which worked so well, and that's my challenge, which is to from the minute the iron mask comes off and the new suit goes on -- God help me [laughs] -- it may look like Henry Allen, but it's clear to everyone we're dealing with a completely different personality.The thing that's exciting for me about this is Henry Allen had a limited shelf-life; a very important shelf-life. I'm so happy I had those raw, emotional experiences, but it was coming to a close, and it was pretty linear what his role in the show was. Now suddenly, Jay Garrick is wide open. Like you suggest, if they're going to have a Justice Society, well that's got to include Jay Garrick, and also my role in The Flash. This is actor speculation, by the way; this isn't anything that I've been told. The only thing that I've been told is there is so much more that we can do with you -- meaning me, John Wesley -- than we could before. Andrew and Greg both said, "We can't wait to start writing it."

The Flash is renewed for Season 3 and will continue to air Tuesdays at 8 p.m. ET/PT on The CW when it returns in the fall.Terri Schwartz is Entertainment Editor at IGN. Talk to her on Twitter at @Terri_Schwartz