Arrow Producers Talk Tonight's Huge Ra's al Ghul Twist

Warning: Spoilers ahead for tonight's episode of Arrow, titled "Nanda Parbat."

Following a screening of tonight's episode of Arrow, titled "Nanda Parbat," earlier this week, producers Andrew Kreisberg and Marc Guggenheim discussed tonight's game-changing twist in the relationship between Oliver Queen and Ra's al Ghul.

ComicBook.com was there; here's what the producers had to say. Keep an eye peeled for the full interview after the West Coast airing of the episode.

Where will the next episode pick up?

Marc Guggenheim: It picks up literally ten seconds before the end of this episode. So it's one of our direct pickups; we catch you up a little bit and then we go straight into [Episode] Sixteen, like we did with Episode 202 and 203.

Andrew Kreisberg: You want to keep that conversation going, because obviously Oliver, as hopefully the audience is, is taken aback. He is not expecting that to be the case and it was something that Greg and Marc and I talked about, is that it was important to have a different villain this year and somebody who as going to do something completely different.

In Season One, we had the incomparable John Barrowman, who had his mission and obviously last year Slade's mission was one of vengeance. Then this year to have Ra's, who's presented as this gaint malevolent force but to have him come up and basically offer our hero the keys to the kingdom, it just felt like such a different way to go and a different relationship for Oliver to have with the villain.

The next episode is actually called "The Offer." What Oliver's reaction to it is, what Nyssa's reaction to it is, what everyone's reaction to it is makes up the bulk of the next run of episodes and what his answer is and what that prompts all of the other characters to do.

Is it safe to assume that Nyssa didn't see this coming?

Katrina Law: Nyssa is pleasantly surprised.

Guggenheim: If by pleasantly she means unpleasantly.

Kreisberg: Nyssa is the Heir to the Demon. So you can imagine how she feels when she discovers that what she considers her birthright is being handed over to Oliver.

Guggenheim: I've been trying to get the writer's room, as a bit, to every time Nyssa's in the episode, that she would say "I am Nyssa, Heir to the Demon..." – and someone [clears throat].... – "...Daughter of the Demon." And that's the whole episode.

Is Nyssa's relationship with Sara really the foundation of why she's not the heir? It's subtle how that's talked about.

Guggenheim: It is subtle. I think there's a scene in Sixteen between Nyssa and Ra's that definitely addresses that. I think the best way to answer your question is, from Nyssa's perspective, it has everything to do with Sara. From Ra's' perspective? Maybe, maybe not.

Are we going to hear Talia's perspective on all of this?

Kreisberg: Who's Talia?

Law: I ate her. She was my twin, I ate her in the womb.

Kreisberg: We haven't made any firm decisions on whether Talia exists in our continuity.

Guggenheim: But kudos to the veiled attempt to find out. It was a great ploy!

Kreisberg: We are so, so, so happy with Katrina and Nyssa, and if we ever think of a reason to have a Talia or whatever incarnation we decide to do, it would be in service of furthering Katrina's story.

Can you talk about that, too? All along it's been like "We have to work with Malcolm, because Ra's is coming for us." But now he's not. That seems like it puts Malcolm in an interesting position.

Kreisberg: Well, part of it is how it lays out for the rest of the year – what Oliver is willing to do to end the threat of the League, and now it's a different kind of threat because he's asking [Oliver] to join up and as Malcolm tells him in a subsequent episode, he's not really asking. That leads all sorts of interesting combinations and new paradigms.

The most fun for us doing the show is when we pair new people up who hadn't previously been together. So much of the fun for us writing this season has been John and Willa being together.

Guggenheim: Even John and Katie [Cassidy] in this episode.

Kreisberg: John and Katie in this episode, which was again watching Laurel with more verve than skill think that she can for one second take on Malcolm is just another example of, she's not the Black Canary yet. Sara might have gotten him but there's no way Laurel can. And again, she gets knocked down and she gets right back up again and that's what we love about Laurel but seeing that and Nyssa in upcoming episodes, seeing that relationship form – just because the death threat to Malcolm is gone, that does not mean that he's out of the equation.

Thea is very guilt-ridden and seems to be acting somewhat impulsively. What can you share about how that will play into Team Arrow's dynamic when they're actually trying to save the city?

Guggenheim: Well, I think certainly with Episode 15, that certainly was Thea acting at her most impulsively. We're working toward telling a different story with Thea; it's not always just about her acting out. But she's processing a huge amount of guilt and a huge amount of regret. At the end of 15, she's essentially attempting suicide by Nyssa.

Kreisberg: The best way to go!

Guggenheim: Yeah. If you're gonna go, that's definitely how to do it.

Law: I'd be gentle.

Guggenheim: This is a continuing progression; it's not just going to be a repetition of her acting out, acting out, acting out. But in Episode 16, she looks for closure in a different way because, spoiler alert, Nyssa's not going to kill Thea.

Kreisberg: Or is she?

Guggenheim: [Long pause] But you'll see that progression.

Kreisberg: We're kill-happy producers!

Guggenheim: We are very kill-happy.

Will Oliver's humanity prevent him from becoming Ra's al Ghul? He's been struggling with whether he can go back to being a killer, but it's one thing to kill Ra's al Ghul, it's another thing to become him and do what he does, which is kill a lot of people, it seems like.

Guggenheim: Well, Ra's has a very interesting perspective on that question, which you'll get in the first act of 316. One of the things that we reveal in 320 is where the name League of Assassins came from and what it means to be a quote-unquote assassin. If you're a historian you know that it has a different meaning than just what it's become in the modern day.

Can you just talk a little about what we'll see going forward from Nyssa? Does this change her objective or just add to it?

Law: I think Nyssa's journey going forward is really interesting because she was so dead set on who she was, what she was doing and how she had laid out her future for herself, then everything has been thrown up in the air. She's no longer heir to the Demon, she no longer has her lover who I'm sure she was thinking about keeping around forever. [Laughs] So she's essentially at this point in the story lost everything and I think for the first time in her life she's vulnerable and she feels weak and she feels useless and doesn't know where she stands or who she is at the moment. I think it's very jarring for her because she's never had to go through that ever in any capacity in her life before. So I think you're going to see Nyssa trying to figure out who she is and what she stands for now.

It seems like she's found an ally in Laurel. Can you talk about that a little, and whether she might find one in Thea as well?

Law: I feel like journey-wise between the characters, the two of them may have more in common than Nyssa had originally thought. I think the Laurel character had lived a semi-smooth life of just going through the ins and outs of growing up and then all of a sudden she's lost her sister and now she's lost her father and now she's trying to become something that she's not necessarily good at, which is the Black Canary, but she will be. I think Nyssa is going through that same journey of trying to figure out who she is and now that she's lost everything, of trying to become a softer human being with compassion and sympathy and all of these things that she didn't have to think about before. And making choices on her own without her father or the League's guidance. And so between the two of them, I think they might have more in common than they think and plus they're both having daddy issues right now.