Arrow Teases "The Man Under the Hood"
Not long ago, Arrow Executive Producer Marc Guggenheim teased a 'special announcement' around [...]
Not long ago, Arrow Executive Producer Marc Guggenheim teased a "special announcement" around the upcoming, nineteenth episode of the show's second season; it was for that reason that they went straight from Episode 18 ("Deathstroke") to Episode 20 ("Seeing Red") when announcing episode titles and creative teams. Now, though, we get the title of Episode 19 without a special announcement yet. That title? "The Man Under the Hood." "Under the Hood" is the title of Hollis Mason's autobiography in Watchmen, which showed up in Kingdom Come. Series star Stephen Amell has previously stated that Arrow isn't the first masked vigilante in the universe they're building, so perhaps the title is a subtle nod to the generational passing of the torch that was a theme in both Watchmen and Kingdom Come. Equally (or arguably more) likely is that the hood references one of a few characters already established in the Arrowverse -- Oliver Queen or Roy Harper -- or perhaps the DC Universe antihero The Red Hood (which could tie to the "Seeing Red" in the title of the next episode...but so could Roy, if he chose to take on "Red Arrow" as a name instead of the seemingly-more-likely Arsenal. The Red Hood would be an interesting one as he has deep ties to Batman, suggesting that the Dark Knight exists in the Arrowverse and that he could have been the first of the superheroes here. If true, that might lend some credence to the long-simmering Nightwing rumors, which Amell had recently thrown some water on, implying they were just out-of-control Internet rumors. Anyway, here's the tweet:
The title of Episode 2x19 of Arrow is called "The Man Under the Hood" #notamechanic
— Marc Guggenheim (@mguggenheim) March 14, 2014
Probably worth noting that Hollis Mason (who is most assuredly not a candidate to show up on Arrow; any reference to Watchmen would be purely thematic) actually was a mechanic, so that may be taking things a little too metaphorically for a tweet. Comic Book Movie has already all-but- announced Red Hood, so don't be surprised by an announcement one way or the other coming out once the offices open on Monday and Warner Bros. Television realizes it has another Harley Quinn-sized buzz going. It's also worth noting, in that vein, that Batman: Under the Red Hood was one of Warner Bros.'s best-selling animated features in the DC Universe line. All of that said, probably the most obvious answer is that Oliver's identity could be compromised; they've already played with it once before, and there are an awful lot of people -- including some without his best interests at heart (like Slade Wilson and Amanda Waller) who already know who Oliver is under the hood.
