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Last week, Arrow writer and Executive Producer Andrew Kreisberg joined reporters for a screening of “The Man Under the Hood” and “Seeing Red.” Because of the wildly spoilery nature of tonight’s third act, nearly nothing people asked was usable at the time, but now that it’s out there, we can share some of the conversation.One such topic? The death of a major player in Oliver Queen’s life. Read on to see what Kreisberg had to say about this week’s shocking loss…What went into the decision to kill Moira this week? Have you guys known all along that was the plan?It wasn’t something we were talking about, certainly last year.I don’t want to give the impression that somebody has to die, we spin the wheel and, oop! Bad luck Moira! The decision was — just as with Colin Donnell — it was difficult.Susanna has been with the show since the beginning and she was one of our big gets early on that signaled to the audience and to reviewers that this wasn’t your average CW show, it wasn’t your average superhero show. And like with Colin Donnell, these last episodes are her pinnacle. I think this is as good as anything that’s on television and unfortunately because of the kind of show it is probably won’t be recognized as such.But truthfully, you see all those scenes with her and Stephen and her importance to the show in helping Willa and Stephen going from solid actors to amazing actors is due to sharing screen time with her. The decision really was, just like with Tommy, where is her trajectory going?In Season One, she had this incredible secret that she was part of the Undertaking and she suffered for it and went to jail for it and then we’ve discovered that she had an even better secret which is that Thea is really the daughter of Malcolm Merlyn. And when that secret blew up, it sort of tore the whole family apart and obviously we’ve been taking steps to bring people back together again and we were talking about the future and knowing that we wanted Slade to really…it was only going to be powerful if Slade really changed the game by doing something truly monstrous.It was, well, if Moira wins the mayorship, if she makes up with her kids, what is she? What is Moira without some giant secret? And if there’s another giant secret, for us it sort of felt like we were becoming a soap opera where it was “Well, yes, you tried to blow up the city, and you lied about this, and now you’ve lied about this other thing!”It sort of felt like in a way, she could die a hero’s death and die this person who was conflicted because even as she’s saying that ‘we have to tell the truth,’ we’re seeing that she has kept this other horrible secret. You literally can’t change her. She goes to the grave — in spite of the fact that she sacrifices herself for her children, which is so amazing and there’s a line in the next episode where Walter says to Thea, “you know, your mother showed you that she loved you in ways that few parents can,” and yet she was still lying. And that was the essence of her character and that’s why it was so great. We felt like ending it at this time left you with that feeling of what a great character she was, rather than becoming a caricature.That was the math and just like Tommy, it was horrible math and it was tearful math but her death, just like with Tommy, has a profound impact on everyone in the series. It certainly is what’s going to drive Oliver in these next three episodes but also what’s going to drive Thea not just in those three episodes but also into season three. Sometimes the worst thing you can do personally [as a writer] is the best thing you can do professionally.
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