Arrow Showrunner Wendy Mericle On Tonight's Shocking Felicity Twist

Warning: Spoilers ahead for tonight's episode of Arrow, titled "Blood Debts."

Back in December, Felicity Smoak was shot by gunmen aiming to kill both her and her brand-new fiance, Oliver Queen. When Ollie pulled her from the car, things looked bleak. And while we never really believed she would die, that doesn't mean these kinds of story beats happen without consequences.

In tonight's episode, we discover whether or not Felicity lived, and what impact the events of "Dark Waters" will have on Team Arrow moving forward.

Series excutive producer joined ComicBook.com to talk about the decision to put Felicity Smoak in a wheelchair with permanent (or as permanent as anything can be in a superhero show) damage to her spinal cord which doctors say means she'll never walk again.

You can see (most of) the rest of our interview here.

How "permanent" is the permanent damage to Felicity's spine? Is the plan at this point to try to find a magical cure, or is the plan at this point to give her a new challenge to overcome?

I think it's both. The way we're exploring this big, life-changing event is though the prism of Oliver and Felicity's relationship. I think Felicity being the person who is injured and who is dealing with this new reality, we really want to be true and respectful and honest and real about what it's like to find yourself in that position, like she does. We really want to delve into the emotion of that and the reality of it in a very respectful way.

At the same time, without being too fantastical or magical about it, I think Oliver will be optimistic that this is a world where Barry Allen exists. You don't know if this is permanent or not. I think that's endemic to the world we've created, where stranger things have happened, but for right now, we have really come down on the side of that and we're exploring the issues as grounded as possible. It's a very real issue and you do want to be respectful of people who are living with that reality day to day. That's very important to us.

Marc has said that Oracle is off the table. Was that something that was ever going to happen, or is it just something that fans picked up on?

I think it's something the fans kept picking up on and really wanted, and understandably. I can see why it would seem organic to go in that direction, but it's definitely off the table. We'll be coming up with different ways of exploring Felicity's new identity.