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Following a screening of tonight’s episode of Arrow, titled “Nanda Parbat,” earlier this week, producers Andrew Kreisberg and Marc Guggenheim along with actors John Barrowman and Katrina Law discussed tonight’s game-changing twist in the relationship between Oliver Queen and Ra’s al Ghul, the decision to put Ray Palmer and Felicity Smoak in bed together, the future of Nyssa’s “daddy issues” and more.
ComicBook.com was there; here’s what the producers had to say.
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.
Katrina Law: Nyssa is pleasantly surprised.
MG: If by pleasantly she means unpleasantly.
AK: 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.
MG: 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.
MG: 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?
AK: Who’s Talia?
KL: I ate her. She was my twin, I ate her in the womb.
AK: We haven’t made any firm decisions on whether Talia exists in our continuity.
MG: But kudos to the veiled attempt to find out. It was a great ploy!
AK: 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 guys talk about getting Ray and Felicity together in the sack so quickly?
MG: Oh, it was all Andrew’s idea!…See what I did there?
AK: We often talk what life would be like if Twitter existed in the days of, like, Cheers, when we’re writing. Part of the fun of watching couples on television is keeping them apart and watching how other people come in and out of their lives. There are a lot of people who believe Oliver and Laurel should be together, or people who believe that Oliver and Felicity should be together. We don’t know how it’s all going to tur out; we just do what’s right at the time.
For right now, Oliver has decided that “I can’t do this,” and Felicity isn’t going to sit around waiting for him. She’s probably the most healthy of all of them. He’s the one who’s shutting himself down emotionally when he has this amazing person who’s basically offering him hope and guidance and friendship and love and everything. He doesn’t feel he deserves it and doesn’t feel that that’s best for her, whether she agrees with it or not.
Then you’ve got Ray and in a lot of ways he’s an analogue to Oliver. He’s had a tragedy and he’s trying to do right by it. But he’s opening his heart to her. And he’s Brandon Routh. How can you blame her?
When Oliver lost his fight to Ra’s, the Internet already exploded with talk about the Lazarus Pit. With so many people in danger, was that maybe premature?
MG: Again, I give you credit for the veiled attempt to try and get us to spoil the show, but I think all of the answers to that question, they’ve already been presented on the show. You’ve seen everything you need to see to know where we’re headed.
AK: Let’s just say that our version of Ra’s is a lot closer to the comic books than you’ve seen in other live-action adaptations.
Was this episode the first time you’ve said something about meeting people in the 1800s?
MG: We had said something in 309 that nobody had challenged him in like 63 years. Some period of time that was older than – that’s what I mean. There’s plenty of auditory and visual clues that we’ve planted throughout the season, that we encourage everyone to play along.
For people who haven’t seen the episode, what’s the most exciting thing that’s coming?
AK: We already knew what the schedule was going to be, so we already knew this episode had a big break coming. So it’s designed to be a sort of crazy cliffhanger. I think that Willa has just risen to such amazing heights these last few episodes and continues in this one, and seeing what she’s willing to do and what Oliver’s willing to do for her soul. One of the things we talked about very early on was that this season is really the fight for Thea’s soul and more than anything, victory this season for Oliver is saving Thea. She’s caught between disparate forces.
And then seeing what happens to Merlyn after these episodes, it’s just the most screwed-up family show we could possibly think of.
MG: I’m really excited for people to see The Atom suit in its full glory and the first time Ray flies. That’s a big moment for us in that the show is not The Flash. We don’t traffic in these sort of visuals. So it was a big deal for us to get this kind of character on the show, looking the way he does and everything.
AK: Also, to finally have John [Barrowman] and Matt [Nable] in the same scene. The whole idea of Ra’s al Ghul was really wish fulfillment, on our part. After John had almost been assassinated by Deadshot, and he had a little speech where he said, “I met a man and went to Nanda Parbat,” we thought, “Maybe, one day, in Season 3, they’ll let us have Ra’s al Ghul be the villain.”
John Barrowman: I remember you said to me, “We’d love to have one point where you’re on your knees in front of Ra’s.” I don’t mean that in a rude way, but you wouldn’t tell me what would happen.
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.
AK: 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.
MG: Even John and Katie [Cassidy] in this episode.
AK: 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.
Can you talk about playing Malcolm this week? This is the first time we’ve seen him legitimately scared.
JB: Yeah, I mean, the one person you fear is Ra’s. He’s touched on that fear prior in moments that he’s talking to Thea – “we should be scared,” “we need to leave the city” – there’s that element there but to finally see him in front, he knows that he is not in control at that point. There’s not much he can do. He has to face the maker to an extent. And he knows what he can do because he was one of his assassins and doing his dirty work for him, so he knows what he can do and what he’s capable of.
I think it’s important that you see the fear in Malcolm. The one thing that I’ve read with people who have fallen for Malcolm, the best compliment they give me is “Oh, my God, we hate you but we love you.” Because they get why he’s doing it and they understand why he’s doing what he’s doing. That’s why it’s important for me to show that emotional side to him. That’s what the fans then connect with. They can see that he’s not just a villain. There’s something right behind it. There’s a reason why he’s doing it. There’s a reason as to why he’s scared, and you’re finding that out.
AK: One of my favorite moments, this whole season, is in Episode 12, with the flashbacks with Malcolm, just seeing him with Tommy, as a kid. All of these people have lost something so terrible.
JB: And they’ve all had to change, completely, in a way that perhaps, along the way – and this is the fan talking, and not anything that’s been written – maybe there is a bit of regret in their head, that they’ve turned the way they’ve turned. But, they had to make a decision because this is the way it’s gotta be, and that’s it.
AK: And also in that episode we see young Nyssa, she’s nine years old and already learning how to kill people. Unlike all of these other people who had normal lives, and then tragedy turned them into what they were, she was turned into what she is from birth. She’s actually going on a different trajectory, where she’s seeing what kindness looks like for the first time, and she’s seeing what normal people look like for the first time. Especially when what she sees as her inheritance is taken away from her, that sends her on a completely different journey.
JB: That’s really what the beauty of – and again, fan talking – this DC world. This world has been created that really, every character is doing it for the same reason in a sense. It’s all about saving something, doing something, but what’s great is how each person turns in a different way. One’s a good way and one’s a bad way, but it’s all in how it’s interpreted. I’ve always said that I don’t see Malcolm as being a bad person. I just see him as being misunderstood in the things that he does. We’re all doing the same thing.
AK: We always say that everyone is the hero of their own story.
JB: Correct, and that’s how you have to do it.
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?
MG: 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.
AK: The best way to go!
MG: Yeah. If you’re gonna go, that’s definitely how to do it.
KL: I’d be gentle.
MG: 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.
AK: Or is she?
MG: [Long pause] But you’ll see that progression.
AK: We’re kill-happy producers!
MG: We are very kill-happy.
As all of these secrets continue to come to the surface, do you feel like that frees you up, as writers, or does it make it harder to find that tension?
MG: The currency of the show is secrets. I would never admit to reading recaps and reviews, after an episode airs, but were I to, I would be surprised by the number of people who said, “Finally, Lance knows the secret of Sara. Laurel should have told him back in Episode Three.” I think that misses the point of, these revelations in the latter half of the season have currency only because the secrets have been kept for so long and the storylines have been simmering on the boiler for so long. We drop these little landmines, and then we wait – tick tick tick tick tick – for them to get detonated. That’s a big part of what makes the show, the show.
AK: Especially because it’s a superhero show, and it is about heroes, for us, the most interesting part about it is that, as good as they are as superheroes, they’re all messed up as people. They make a lot of bad decisions, but they don’t mean to. Oliver probably should have told Thea a long time ago that he’s The Arrow, but he had his reasons and they meant something to him. Just like Laurel was worried about her father’s health. Part of it was that, if she had admitted to her dead that Sara was dead, then it was really true. She only knew how to cope with it by becoming Sara, which she couldn’t do without telling her dead. So, she made things irrevocably worse, and we were building to that. Usually, on TV, people do something wrong, they have a spat, and they make up by the end credits. One of the things that’s happening on the show, and it’s going to continue for a while, is that they’re not in a good place. One of the things that he said in Episode Fourteen was, “It’s always been you and me. Whatever else there was with your mom and your sister, it was always you and me and you broke that. I’m going to have to live with Sara being dead, but I don’t know how I’m going to get along with that.
We don’t solve that. We’re writing Episode 21 now, and it’s still not solved. Laurel made a really bad decision, and it’s going to haunt her and her dad for a long time. For us, that’s where all the drama comes from. That’s the best stuff to write. Otherwise, everybody would be getting along, all the time.
JB: Otherwise, you wouldn’t really have a show. It wouldn’t be a drama. It would be something completely different.
AK: When we go on Twitter and we see somebody go, “Why is she doing that?!,” it’s like, “Otherwise, there would be nothing to watch!”
KL: One of my favorite things about the characters – all of the characters – is it’s about a fight for their soul and how much they’re willing to fight to keep parts of it and how much of it they’re willing to sell or give away to achieve what they want. I think as actors, it makes our journey incredible and you’re just constantly searching for justification, justification, justification. I’m sure as writers you’re just having a field day.
JB: That’s what I like about the table reads. We get the scripts before the table read, but I don’t look at them until we go into the table read. I don’t want to know, when I’m playing a moment in the current episode, what’s going to happen because it might change how I’m playing that. Maybe that’s a good thing, but generally, for me, it’s not because I wouldn’t be playing it as honestly in that moment, if I know what the outcome is going to be. So, when we go into the table reads, sometimes I’m like, “What?!” The beauty for us is that we can go, “All right, how do we do this?”
AK: The table read is really important to us, on all of the shows. We’ll sit there and realize, “That character didn’t speak for two acts. We made a mistake there.” Listening to them do it the first time, we’ll be like, “Oh, that connection didn’t even occur to us.” Everyone who does the table reads really gives it their all, which is so sweet and helpful for us.
How will the presence of Atom in Starling City change things for Team Arrow?
MG: Episode 317 is definitely the episode you’ll want to check out, in terms of that question. There’s a new superhero in town, and he’s going to go about things in a very different way than The Arrow does. He’s not a part of Team Arrow. Right now, he’s just a very smart guy in a very, very powerful suit. Oliver is definitely going to have an opinion, and the first instance of that is going to be in 317.
The last few episodes have really been about revenge and vengeance. Will that continue, or will people’s motivations change?
MG: I think revenge and vengeance have always been the undercurrent of the show. It’s one of those elements that we always traffic in. Sometimes it’s right at the surface, like in recent episodes, and other times, it’s way below. In the next batch of episodes, a lot of it has to do with sacrifice, and what all of these different people are willing to do for each other. It doesn’t have to be life and death. There are a variety of different forms of sacrifice.
AK: It’s also continuing what we said at the beginning.This year is really about, “Who am I?” Every character is asking, “Who am I?” For Malcolm, it’s about, “Am I the villain, or am I the hero? Am I Thea’s father, or am I just a killer?” Oliver has been asking, “Am I Oliver Queen, or am I The Arrow?” Nyssa is asking, “Am I the heir to the demon, or is there something more to me?” And then, Thea is asking, “Am I this terrible thing that I did, or can I be something more?”
Our goal at the beginning of the season, and it’s continuing now and goes up until the end, is to have people make those decisions for themselves. Some people will make surprising decisions, and some people will make exactly the decision you’re expecting. It will be interesting to see who gets to be what.
JB: What’s great is, sitting here listening to this, I don’t even know!
AK: You’ll have to wait for the table read.
JB: I know!
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.
MG: 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.
John, what was your training like for this episode? We see you fight a ton.
JB: I’ve got to be honest with you: I just go in and I do it and I do it all by myself…no! [Laughs]
KL: He improvs.
JB: We have a fantastic stunt team, and I have to give them credit. Probably 90% of that is my stunt guy, and he’s absolutely amazing. We overlap the shots. I’ve done fight training for other shows that I’ve been on, and I’ve never really been taken aside by the stunt team to do any of the fight training. Bam always says to me, “you treat it like a dance,” and being someone who trained in dance, it’s all movement. He’s able to show me once, and I can get it and I do it. The only thing they have to remind me is that in dance, everything is up, and I have to keep everything down. That’s the one note I always get told. He’s like, “Barrowman, go down, go down.” I’m like, “You don’t have to tell me once.”
AK: Katrina is the stunt guys’ favorite, from day one. After her first episode in Season 2, they were like, “Can she come back, every week?” She’s apparently up for anything, and they have to stop her from doing stuff.
KL: The only thing I won’t do willingly are the silk lines.
JB: Oh, falling and coming down?
KL: Yeah, I’d be flat on my face in the pavement in like two seconds. But our stunt team is fantastic and Atlin Mitchell is my stunt chick extraordinaire and makes my butt look great. But this woman is so powerful and has these shoulders that are just great.
AK: Atlin was also Sara’s stunt double – and she’s actually guest-starring on an episode of The Flash.
KL: She’s amazing. The wonderful thing is Arrow, they’re so quick and efficient up there that they had their entire stunt team rehearsing the week before.
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?
KL: 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?
KL: 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.
Can you talk about that scene with Laurel in this episode?
KL: I think any flashbacks to the Sara Lance character is important to the Nyssa character because that’s one of the reasons that people like Nyssa is the connection to the Canary and the love story and how loyal she is to Sara Lance. I think one of the few people that Nyssa is able to relate to on a primal level to that is Laurel just because it’s a sister relationship, it’s the female bond, it’s all these different things you just won’t get through a man. I think she’s one of the few characters that actually fundamentally understands Nyssa.
