I started rewatching Season 1 after I heard this news. I can confidently say I want this very much. Just ... not as a flashback. He can't be as viscerally threatening if we know this is all in the past and he eventually loses.
They kinda did this at the very beginning of season 2, and it was still creepy as fuck. 
While that would be cool, I don’t see how he could possibly do that unless it would be in flashbacks. He’s quite dead.
Cloning.
Multiverse.
Healing factor.
Holograms.
Secret twin.
Sleight of neck.
They cast him and he just plays a corpse the whole time.
See? Lots of options.
Sleight of neck
"Haha, you merely snapped my decoy neck!"
I made you remember something that didn't happen is plausible.
They never show him being able to manipulate memory. Even when he controls people they are aware of what they're doing
That's fair. It's still plausible. Or just introduce another, memory altering, character and they team up!
Though how you would defeat that combo I have no clue.
Dallas dream storyline
Experiment that brings him back from the dead but leaves his skin purple