Arrow Executive Producer Marc Guggenheim On The Huntress’s Return in “Birds of Prey”

‘s Huntress, Jessica de Gouw, has been gone for a while and when she returns in the upcoming March 26 episode “Birds of Prey,” she’ll be doing so more as an antagonist to Team Arrow — she reportedly takes a number of hostages, including Laurel Lance, in her single-mindedness about going after her father.In a new interview, series Executive Producer Marc Guggenheim said that there’s really nothing of Helena Bertinelli left: all that’s left is The Huntress, which makes her one of the most Batman-like characters in the DC Universe, and gives the character an edge of uncertainty because anyone in her way is subject to consequences.”It’s been literally a year, in story time, since we’ve seen her,” Guggenheim told Collider. “One of the things we told Jessica De Gouw, who plays The Huntress, was that we weren’t interested in treading over old territory with Helena. What we pitched her was the idea that basically Helena Bertinelli is gone. The only thing that remains is The Huntress. It’s been a year of her literally scouring the world to find her father, who was on the run at the end of Episode 17 of last season. We really wanted to show that wear and tear on her. We even aged up her costume a little bit, so you really get the sense that she has been traveling the world and literally has just spent a year killing people to try to get at her dad, and it’s done quite a number on her soul. We get to explore all that, in a really fun episode that also deals with Laurel Lance, in a very big way. One of the things we wanted to do with the episode was give Laurel her groove back, as it were. We have obviously taken Laurel down a very dark path, this year. As we started to see at the end of last week’s episode, she’s going to start turning the corner. And this episode with The Huntress is a very big move in that direction.”