Arrow: Marc Guggenheim Previews “The Fallen” & What’s Next

A new episode of Arrow titled “The Fallen” airs on The CW tonight (April 22) at 8PM ET/PT, and last week, The CW hosted a screening of the episode followed by a Q&A with Executive Producer Marc Guggenheim.

There was a lot to discuss that was spoilery – so come back after the episode has aired for more – but he did get us into the headspace of several characters in addition to teasing and confirming some things that are coming up. Know that spoilers are still being discussed.

The biggest matter of “The Fallen” is, of course, saving Thea, who appeared to be mortally wounded by Ra’s al Ghul last week. Ra’s did this, of course, to recruit Oliver Queen (Stephen Amell) to take his place among the League of Assassins, as he may have the means to bring Thea back.

How does Ra’s feel about his tactics?

“He’s not a self-contemplative guy,” Guggenheim told the screening room full of journalists. He’s not burdened by normal self-doubts. So, Ra’s is pretty dedicated to his course,” he confirms. Another character, however, might be a little more up in the air with their direction. “Maseo, though, I would say his soul is very much in play, and certainly that dynamic plays out in the final three episodes of the season. In the past and the present, there’s a little bit of a war for Maseo’s soul. We just know from the fact that he joined the League of Assassins, we kind of know how that ended in the past, but how things end in the present and whether or not he can be redeemed is definitely one of the questions that we’re building up towards answering,” Marc promises.

Continuing in that League world, Guggenheim confirms that Nyssa, the daughter of Ra’s al Ghul, will be featured a lot in the 21st episode of Season 3, airing on April 29, and we will be seeing Tatsu, Maseo’s wife, again in present day… but he’s not revealing any more on the Tatsu front. “I’m going to leave it at that,” he teases.

“If you’re a Nyssa fan, 21’s your episode because we’ll learn a lot of things actually about Nyssa. Not in terms of backstory, but we’ll learn how she reacts to things and how she’s dealing with life post-316. There’s a lot of Nyssa still to come and she looms very large in these final three episodes,” Guggenheim says. The upcoming episodes will have to say goodbye to another familiar fixture of the show, though, as the Foundry “Arrow lair,” where Team Arrow hangs out, has been “kiboshed.”

“You’ll actually see they’re going to end up hanging out a great deal at Palmer Technologies. In fact, we basically sort of had to expand Ray’s workshop to allow for scenes with now suddenly a whole large group of people rather than just Ray and Felicity,” Guggenheim reveals. “So we did a little bit of set redesign and set redecoration. That basically is the Lair for the remainder of the season. In fact, there’s a scene in 22 – you’ll never recognize it as the Lair, but there’s a scene in 22 that is basically in the same footprint on the stage as to where the lair was. That said, you haven’t seen the last of the Lair yet. It makes one final appearance in [Episode] 21,” he says.

Does that mean Ray Palmer is now officially a part of Team Arrow? “One thing we’ve avoided doing this year is basically ‘Ray’s a superhero and therefore Ray is a member of Team Arrow.’ Every time he interacts with Team Arrow or allies himself with Team Arrow, there’s a story reason behind it, as opposed to just the assumption that ‘okay, he’s part of the team now.’ But Ray plays a very large role in all of the events, certainly in 22 and 23. 21, Ray is not in, because it’s a very Team Arrow-centric episode, and Ray, for all of his charms and for all of the help he can provide, is not a member of Team Arrow, and we wanted to keep the focus on that team,” Guggenheim explains.

One might assume the new set that Guggenheim teased last week might be a new headquarters for Team Arrow, but that’s not the case.

“I can tell you we shot on it two days ago [at the time of the interview],” he says coyly. “I can tell you, right now, there are no plans for it to play beyond episode 323. It requires a fair amount of green screen work to make it work. The scene we shot features R’as, Nyssa and Oliver.”

And finally, after all of the tragedy of last week’s show, could there be more by season’s end?

“You know me, I would never say one way or the other,” he says. “We killed off the fern, what more do you want?”

Arrow is new at 8PM tonight (April 22) on The CW. See some photos from tonight’s episode HERE!