In the wake of this week’s game-changing episode, Arrow executive producers Andrew Kreisberg and Marc Guggenheim preview the second half of the season.
After discussing the perhaps surprising Nyssa/Canary romance from this week’s game-changing episode, “Heir to the Demon,” the Arrow bosses tease the next batch of episodes.
A freed Sara
“Part of the reason we did [‘Heir to the Demon’] was to free Sara, at least for the time being, from the threat of the League of Assassins, which will allow her to fully be the Black Canary and come home,” Kreisberg tells The Hollywood Reporter.
And that will have consequences. “You got a glimpse of how some people are very happy and some people are very upset,” Kreisberg says, particularly of Laurel and Dinah. “You’re really going to see how Sara’s return affects everybody. Hopefully people will be surprised by the reaction.”
All about Felicity
In “Heir to the Demon,” Felicity told Oliver that her father abandoned her family. But this won’t be the last we hear of her past. “There are two massive things that are going to happen toward the end of the season that you heard in that speech that will pay off,” Kreisberg previews.
The second part of that speech was the major bomb about Thea’s parentage, despite Moira’s warning that Oliver would hate Felicity if she told him. But according to the EPs, that was just a bluff. “I don’t even think Moira necessarily believed what she was saying to Felicity,” Guggenheim says.
“Moira was manipulating Felicity into staying silent. It would never even occur to Oliver to be angry at Felicity” since she was just the messenger. “I think his anger is correctly directed at Moira.” Adds Kreisberg: Oliver and Felicity’s relationship is “actually going to be strengthened. She’s the rock.”
Mother-son relations
But while Oliver and Felicity remain on good terms, Oliver’s relationship with his mother is broken. “This is a fracture to her relationship with Oliver that is not going to be mended in an episode,” Kreisberg says.
He also describes Moira’s arc this season as being “about redemption. She went to jail and kind of got away with it. She still hasn’t really paid for what she did and… again she’s paying off doctors, she’s threatening Felicity, she still hasn’t had her ‘come to Jesus’ moment despite what you think would be rock bottom — and that’s coming.”
Meanwhile, this shift in their relationship will not go unnoticed. “There’s a great scene between Oliver and Thea about this territory in episode 17, where both Stephen [Amell] and Willa [Holland] are absolutely phenomenal together,” Guggenheim says.
“There’s so much in the Queen family that is impacted by just the amount of lies — not just Moira’s lies, just lies all over the place in this family. Almost every episode [after] this one really deals with the ramifications and different dimensions of all those lies. Can you have a family, even, based on lies — with so many lies present?”
Team Arrow grows
The Arrow cave is filling up lately, and the dynamics will be shifting. “With Sara, you’ve got somebody who in a way is Oliver. She went through everything Oliver did,” Kreisberg previews.
“She’s the female him and sometimes the two of them have conflict because it’s like he’s talking to himself.” The impact of Sara’s presence will be explored from “different vantage points,” including episode 14’s look at Felicity’s reaction.
The relationship between Sara and Oliver will also be explored as the season continues. They had sex at the end of “Heir to the Demon,” but are they back together? “That’s part of the journey of the next five episodes is Oliver has not had many successful relationships and part of he and Sara moving forward is, is this something that could work?” Kreisberg says.
‘Villains a go-go’
Episodes 14 through 18, which kick off when the show returns on Feb. 26, are “villains a go-go,” Kreisberg previews. “It’s just villain, villain, villain, great big villains, one after the other,” including some “returning favorites and a couple of amazing brand-new ones.”
Guggenheim adds that we’re building “to the show’s big mid-midseason cliffhanger” in episode 18.
Birds of Prey
Included in this batch is the Birds of Prey episode, though “[y]ou’re not going to end up with the Holy Trinity of Oracle, Black Canary and Huntress right out of the gate. We’ll get there,” Guggenheim says. “We gave ourselves room to grow and evolve.”
And yes, that means Jessica De Gouw will be back as Helena Bertinelli, alias Huntress. But when she returns in episode 17, we’ll see that “Helena is gone, all that’s left is the Huntress,” Kreisberg teases. “She’s become consumed by this vengeance for her father,” former crime boss Frank Bertinelli.
“[S]he’s in a very haggard and worn-out state. It’s the big final confrontation between her and her father” that results in “Laurel get[ting] in the crossfire,” so “the Canary has to go into the rescue.”
Roy’s struggles continue
Though Roy was absent in “Heir to the Demon,” he is still an official member of Team Arrow. But that doesn’t mean his mirakuru struggles are over. “The next five episodes really chart Oliver’s attempts to keep Roy on the straight and narrow,” Kreisberg says.
Isabel Rochev
“We’ll find out what [Isabel’s] been up to” when the businesswoman, played by Summer Glau, returns in episode 18, Guggenheim previews.
The Suicide Squad
Set up at the end of “Tremors” when Amanda Waller approached Bronze Tiger, the Suicide Squad — a group of incarcerated supervillains who undertake high-risk government missions in exchange for commuted prison sentences — will debut in episode 16.
In this episode, Lyla recruits Diggle for a mission and, according to Kreisberg, “saddles him with the Suicide Squad, including Floyd Lawton.” This episode will also feature flashbacks to Diggle’s time in Afghanistan with then-friend Ted Gaynor.
Arrow returns with new episodes Feb. 26 at 8:00 p.m. ET on The CW.