Arrow executive producer Marc Guggenheim teases what to expect from the season 3 finale and the set up for season 4.
A ‘definitive end’
Arrow‘s season 3 finale, titled “My Name Is Oliver Queen,” will feel different than the previous two season finales, Guggenheim promises. “It gives you a very definitive end. It does feel like a series finale,” he says. With that in mind, though, “there are plot threads and notions from the season finale that get pulled into season 4.”
“We’ve never ended a season the way we’re ending this season, where literally you are going, ‘How can the show go on?'” he continues. In previous finales, “there was no question of how the show was going to be the show.” That is going to change with this finale, however.
“Here, literally there is no more Arrow identity. There is no more lair. Relationships are fractured. All the things that sort of make the show the show are kind of gone. It’s an interesting conundrum the finale poses, which is ‘OK. That was a really satisfying ending, but I know there is a season 4, so how is there going to be a season 4?’ It’s a cliffhanger.”
Related: Arrow season 3 finale: What we know and what we want
Speaking of fractured relationships, Guggenheim elaborates on the choices Oliver has made in the most recent episodes, essentially destroying the most important relationships in his life. “In the season finale, we will learn why Oliver did that,” he teases. “Not just the plot reason. Someone is going to very pointedly ask him, ‘How did you expect to repair all of this?’ Oliver will have a very specific answer to that question.”
‘Flash’ crossover
Shifting gears, Guggenheim addresses the inclusion of The Flash‘s Barry Allen in the Arrow season finale. Something the writers discuss a lot, he says, is balancing the “shared superhero universe” with the individual series.
“On the one hand, why doesn’t Team Arrow just call Barry all the time? And if he does, why doesn’t Barry make the episode five minutes long? That question gets answered pretty specifically in the season finale.”
He adds, “We wrote it in close consultation with The Flash writers, knowing where Barry was in his story and if you watch episode 23 of Arrow with 23 of Flash back to back, Barry goes straight from Arrow into the season finale of Flash. There’s a pretty good explanation in The Flash story as why he can’t just solve all of Oliver’s problems in five minutes.”
Ra’s al Ghul
As for Matt Nable’s Ra’s al Ghul, Guggenheim says, “We have ideas for how to bring him back next year. At the same time, if we do our job correctly, by the end of the season you feel like, ‘OK, I’ve gotten to the point where I’m narratively satisfied with the story that was told.’
“With Arrow, nothing is ever permanent. … We are just telling the end of this particular story with respect to Ra’s.”
Ray Palmer
Another character who will be departing in the season finale (to star in Legends of Tomorrow) is Ray, though the spinoff was not in the writers’ minds when crafting his farewell. “Ray’s last scene, which is a very definitive sendoff, was actually something we talked about way back at the beginning of the year, long before the spinoff was discussed,” Guggenheim explains.
“While Ray’s sendoff does a nice job of teeing up where he is headed in the spinoff, it was always something we were going to do.”
The Arrow season 3 finale airs on Wednesday, May 13 at 8:00 p.m. ET on The CW.
Source: The Hollywood Reporter
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