Arrow: Birds of Prey Aftershow Discussion With Marc Guggenheim and Jessica de Gouw

In tonight’s episode of Arrow, titled “Birds of Prey,” The Huntress returned for the first time in a year, still hunting her murderous father, and is caught between Arrow, Canary and the law when she takes a courtroom, including Laurel Lance, hostage en route to her revenge.Last week, Executive Producer Marc Guggenheim and guest star Jessica deGouw, who plays Helena Bertinelli (The Huntress) in tonight’s episode, joined ComicBook.com and a group of other reporters for a discussion about the episode.You can read some spoiler-heavy highlights from the conversation that we couldn’t reveal before below.What’s different this time around from when we saw The Huntress in Arrow‘s first season?Marc Guggenheim: What’s Helena been doing for a year? What mental state is she in? What emotional state is she in? We definitely went into this with [the idea that] we have to wrap up the whole Helena-and-her-father storyline. The one thing we were very agreed-upon in the writers’ room from the get-go is that Frank could not surivve the episode–that we had to end that story and really sort of close that chapter of Helena’s life so that we can start a new chapter for her.Jessica deGouw: She’s let go of all these complications and she’s got a very focused aim, which if you’ve seen it, she succeeds in doing what she wants to do but it’s never really what you want.It seems that she’s starting to figure out that vigilantes have a purpose but it’s not always a dark purpose. Is that something we might see explored in the future?Guggenheim: I think for us, the advantage of bringing the Huntress back at this point in the season, in Oliver’s arc, is really that last scene between oliver and Helena. It gave us a chance to articulate how far Oliver has come in his evolution that if he met Oliver today, at this point, maybe there even wouldn’t be a Huntress. Maybe he would have solved the problem of her vendetta in a different way. Back in episode 7 or 8 of last season, he was trying to channel her into some more positive direction — her anger and her vengeance. I think left to his own devices now, he would have tried a different way. I think the tragedy of [“Birds of Prey”] is, just as he’s sort of developed this clarity within himself that he could then pass on to her, Helena of course is in jail.Where would you like to see her in a year?Guggenheim: We definitely have an idea for a Season Three episode with The Huntress. I’m not going ot pitch it here, obviously. [Laughs] You’ll just have to tune in to Season Three.deGouw: I think that the way this episode ends just puts her in a whole different position and a different head space as well and I think it’s opened up a whole new set of possibilities for her. She was so set on one path for such a long time and now it’s been realized and it’s not what she wanted and so it just frees her up for an entirely different life.With Thea now in Slade’s clutches, when can we expect to see that play out?Guggenheim: As always, things will happen sooner rather than later on Arrow. I will say that Thea learns something pretty massive in Episode 18, and it will cause a tectonic shift in her relationship with Oliver.What kind of danger is Thea in?Guggenheim: She’s in phsyical danger and emotional danger and sort of the Sword of Damocles that’s hanging over her in episode 18 is a double-edged words, both physical and emotional. And I can guarantee that by the end of 18, one of those edges is going to cut her.How sane is Slade?We try not to use the “I” word, as it were. He’s clearly not in his right mind and I think that episode 18 will give you a lot more idea of what’s going on in his head. Episode 18 is called “Deathstroke” because we really do, I think, get a much greater sense of Slade’s agenda, where he’s coming from, but also what’s going on in his head. So episode 18 hopefully will answer that or at least give you a big, new insight.What’s behind the idea of separating Roy and Thea when she seems to be the only thing keeping him in check?I think that was really the reason was to upset the apple cart with Roy. She is the only thing that keeps him grounded. It was also, if we’re going to place Thea in jeopardy, we wanted Roy to feel some sense of complicity in that. And episode 18, it deals with a lot. It’s a very big episode; we sort of wrote it as a mid-midseason finale and in fact when we turned Episode 18 into the network, they were like, “You do know you’ve got to do five more episodes, right?” Episode 18 really could play as a season finale just in terms of the number of things that happen and the number of cliffhangers that we’re left with, and one of those things is Roy dealing with his own sense of responsibility — basically, had I not broken up with Thea in the previous episode, she might not be in Slade’s clutches right now. And how does Roy deal with that?Usually when there’s a question that has to do with “Why did we do X?” It’s usually becuase it gave us a lot more character and emotion and story to mine from it and that was certainly the case with breaking up Roy and Thea before Thea ends up in Slade’s car.With the amount you’re promising for the next couple of episodes, what’s left for the finale?It’s funny: I would say quite a bit. Truth be told, those five episodes post-18, we had a lot of story that we still had to get to. We always knew how this season would end and we knew the moment that we were building up to, and we knew a good chunk of moments that we wanted to have. And trying to figure out how to cram them all into the remaining five episodes was a bit of a trek. So we’re very much on this rocket ride from 19 to 23.You know, we always talk about about the season being chapters in a book. 18 closes one chapter and then the final chapter is 19 through 23.Do you know what you want to do on the island in Season Three?We do. We know exactly what we’re going to do. We actually have more clarity on what’s going to happen in the flashbacks for Season Three than we did at the beginning of Season Two. We actually have a very cool storyline in mind. I will say that one of the things that we’ve started to talk about when you get a third season is, “Well, he was on the island for five years. Is it possible the show will go past Season Five?”Then what do we do? And by that point, we probably will have run out of money so the flashbacks in Season Six will be of [Episode] 101, 102, 103. They’ll be flashbacks and we’ll save money that way. We’ll do a clip show!