Seeing as though Oliver Queen went missing for five-years after a life-changing shipwreck and the show is currently in its fifth season, Arrow producers decided this season to wrap up the flashback sequences — a storytelling device that has explained how the billionaire playboy transformed into a hero.
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During the inaugural season, Oliver learned how to survive on a hostile island, fight with his hands, anduse a bow from Yao Fei and Slade Wilson. And while he has had other mentors since then, it is the former that connects him to his latest mentor: Talia al Ghul. She revealed to Oliver, earlier this season, that she took interest in him after seeing him don the hood of Yao Fei, who was a student of hers.
Our own Brandon Davis partook in an interview with Lexa Doig earlier today and asked: “What do you think Talia brings to Oliver’s training that his previous mentors haven’t?”
“I think what Talia is bringing to Oliver is the whole idea of an alter ego,” Doig shared with ComicBook.com. “What I thought was interesting — that isn’t necessarily established through the writing, but what I thought would make kind of a little bit more of an interesting choice for me to play as an actor — when I was looking at some of the old episodes of Arrow where you meet Ra’s and you meet Nyssa, is that they operate on the periphery of society, in the shadows. The League of Assassins and everything. But to me, it was a far more interesting choice to place Talia, at least mentally, in the real world as well. You’re just as likely to see her sitting in a boardroom, orchestrating a hostile takeover of a corporation, as you are in leather, firing arrows at people and slicing someone across the neck. And that’s kind of what she is teaching Oliver to do, right? To have almost a split identity. Or, to separate the vigilante part of himself, that hero part of himself, from how he has to live in the real world. And I think that is why it’s a good final step for him before he goes back to Starling City is for someone like Talia to help guide him in that way.”
OLIVER SEEKS THE TRUTH — Oliver (Stephen Amell) gets closer to the truth about Prometheus.Meanwhile, Helix refuses to continue helping Felicity (Emily Bett Rickards) until she does a favor for them.
Ken Shane directed the episode written by Beth Schwartz & Sarah Tarkoff.
Based on the characters from DC, ARROW is from Bonanza Productions Inc. in association with Berlanti Productions and Warner Bros. Television, with executive producers Greg Berlanti (The Flash, Supergirl), Marc Guggenheim (Eli Stone, Percy Jackson: Sea of Monsters), Andrew Kreisberg (The Flash, Supergirl), Wendy Mericle (Desperate Housewives, Eli Stone) and Sarah Schechter (Supergirl, Blindspot).
MORE: More of The Hood and Dolph Lundgren in “Kapiushon” Photos / Arrow Pits the Bratva Against Prometheus In “Disbanded” / Prometheus Unmasks In Checkmate Sneak Preview
“Checkmate” episode of Arrow will air Wednesday, March 15 at 8 p.m. ET/PT.
