Arrow: This Week Opens Up More Possible Grave Theories

Since the season premiere of Arrow back in October, there's been one standing assumption that's gone relatively unchallenged: that Damien Darhk put somebody very close to Oliver Queen in that grave, and that as a result, Oliver has pledged to put Darhk in the ground.

Most of the speculation, of course, has revolved around who is actually in the grave, and given that the audience cares about Team Arrow and their loved ones more than we do about Damien Darhk, that's probably both as it should be, and as the writers intended it.

...But what if we're overlooking some other possibilities?

Tonight obviously introduced the very real possibility that the body in the grave could be Thea's...and that the "he" whose fault it is wouldn't be Damien Darhk, but Malcolm Merlyn.

Here's why that's a pretty compelling theory:

Merlyn is Green Arrow's Lex Luthor, especially as far as Arrow is concerned. He was the first big bad Oliver faced, has a long-running personal connection (or a dozen) to Oliver, and has recurred as a threat -- to one extent or another -- in every season. He's never gone away.

If the timing works out the way we think it should, this funeral will be either in, or at least very near, the Arrow season finale. That means the "I'm gonna kill him" cliffhanger would continue on into next season.

Next season, of course, being the fifth year of the show and the final year of the flashbacks (unless they get really creative with how the flashbacks are done, or start using flash-forwards, or whatever). Even if the series continues past Year Five, the fact that Oliver was stranded on that island for five years and so far we've been moving forward in real time in the flashbacks means that next season should and likely will be a huge year for the flashbacks.

And let's face it: the flashbacks have always endeavored to make some kind of parallel to what's going on in the current day. In that final year of flashbacks, Malcolm Merlyn would have been rising to power, so that he could be the threat that he is in Arrow's first season. To have the fifth year of flashbacks see that rise to power while Oliver decides to take him down once and for all in the current day would have a sense of symmetry that would really make the journey feel complete.

Add to this a sense of outrage that Oliver could rightly feel, after all of Merlyn's holier-than-thou bluster about how he was willing to sacrifice Sara Lance, and Oliver, and whoever else to keep his daughter safe...and then, when a cure is offered by Nyssa and Tatsu, Merlyn would rather send the League of Assassins to War with the Crescent Order in order to protect his own skin and let Thea die, than sacrifice himself for the good of his daughter and Oliver's sister.

Of course, that's not the only possibility. A lot of fans started to assume after the events of the midseason premiere that it was likely either Quentin Lance or Donna Smoak in the gave, considering Felicity's very emotional response in the back seat of the limo in the flash-forward.

That's not a bad prediction, but now that we know her father is a criminal -- a deeply deranged criminal -- it wouldn't have to be her mother or her mother's new love to make the death so personal for her. It could be more or less anybody close to Team Arrow, if The Calculator is the killer.

That would give a good explanation for why, after Oliver had already committed himself to killing the man responsible for the death, he would leave Barry Allen, get into the car and be instructed by Felicity that he knows he has to kill him.

What if it isn't Felicity's desire for revenge that has her voice quavering, but the realization that she's the only thing standing between Oliver and her father -- and she is unwilling to intervene on her dad's behalf?

Again, using The Calculator as a big bad for Season Five could be narratively satisfying. Perhaps not as much as Merlyn, but certainly for the vocal group who seem to watch the series principally for #Olicity. In some ways, as much as the story of Green Arrow, the series is the story of Oliver Queen reclaiming his humanity. We know the engagement is likely off by the end of this season, but if next year was the final step in getting those characters their happily ever after, then having her father be the big bad would be a really interesting foil for that.

Also, because of the nature of his character, he would be somebody who would confound both Oliver and Felicity, creating a true long-term challenge for Team Arrow that's bigger than just "a guy I can't punch," which is essentially what Oliver has been facing with Darhk. Picking up mercenaries on the Dark Web, hacking into prisons and freeing old enemies, The Calculator could revolutionize Arrow's villain-of-the-week dynamic while giving them a big bad unlike any they've had before -- one with stakes that are emotional as much as physical.

None of these makes the simple answer -- that it's Donna Smoak in the grave and Damien Darhk is the killer -- any less the frontrunner here...but certainly, in the last couple of weeks, we've started to build up more possibilities that make that long-standing assumption that Darhk will be back next year look less like a lock.