Arrow: Marc Guggenheim On What Makes Oliver Different From his Villains

02/15/2017 07:49 pm EST

Oliver Queen has had a hard time figuring out exactly where his morals lie. Sometimes, he's a straight-shooter. Others? Well, there's always a cost to ridding the city of evil, even if that means using lethal force.

This season on Arrow, Ollie has been even more affected by that conundrum. He constantly finds himself toe-ing the line between what's right and wrong.

According to Marc Guggenheim, Oliver is going to continue that struggle throughout this season.

"I think one of the things you'll see in the second half of Season 5 is the gray area becomes a lot more gray. We're really delving into the complexities of Oliver being a killer in a way that we've never done on the show before. Like, I think, a lot more nuance and a lot more - in the past, it was like 'I'm a killer or I'm not a killer.' It was very binary. This year is - like you said, it's super gray, and it's really messy, and this is a component of it. This is a piece of it for sure. On the walk over here, Wendy and I were just talking about a storyline that, again, continues to make those waters muddier because it is a complex, moral decision, and in many ways, Oliver killing is the seminal moral quandary of the show. That was something I think that spoke to us as writers and spoke to the audience back in Season 1. Like 'This guy kills people.' There's a big part of the original pitch. We said 'at the end of Act Two, he's going to break someone's neck.'"

Not only will the rest of this season see Oliver explore that struggle, but the show will also explore what that means for Arrow's entire world.

"One of the things we are doing in the back half of Season 5 is really getting underneath that and what that means, not just in terms of morality but in terms of psychology -- specifically Oliver's psychology. There's things about Oliver's killing that you have yet to learn."

WILD DOG'S HISTORY IS REVEALED — A traumatic attack on City Hall triggers painful memories for Rene (Rick Gonzalez) about his family. Flashbacks reveal how Rene went from simple family man to a hero named Wild Dog.

Meanwhile, Oliver (Stephen Amell) must deal with the perpetrator behind the attack and realizes the best way to do so is as Mayor Queen instead of the Green Arrow. Tensions run high in the Arrow bunker.

Kristin Windell directed the episode written by Marc Guggenheim.

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Arrow airs on Wednesday nights at 8 p.m. ET/PT on The CW. "Spectre of the Gun" premieres on February 15.

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