CWAll is not well in the Arrow-verse.
Tonight, we finally find out who is in the grave that was teased at the beginning of the season, and if you were hoping it was an inconsequential side character, you're out of luck. Somebody important is about to die, and no member of Team Arrow is going to find it easy to recover from this one.
"It's going to be huge and significant," executive producer Wendy Mericle told reporters of the death's impact after a screening of the CW hit's episode. "It's going to be shocking."
Of course, the idea of death on Arrow is not that shocking. It's almost a bigger surprise that it's taken this long for a main character to be the one saying goodbye; so with the show heading into its fifth season this fall after years of Lazarus pits and time travel thrown into the mix, it was time to raise the stakes.
"Death is a reality, and I think with the Lazarus pit and the possibility of coming back, it's easy to forget that our characters are vigilantes," Mericle explained. "They're out in the street, they're doing really dangerous things, and what this does is it really brings that reality back in a very kind of rude and brutal way. It's good for the audience to be reminded of that and for our characters as well."
By all accounts, this death, unlike so many others on the show, is real and permanent. Executive producer Marc Guggenheim dismissed the idea of some kind of trick or fake-out, saying "We've done fake deaths before." However, that does not mean the character is gone for good, since "death is not goodbye."
"Arrow, much more so than Flash or Legends, traffics in death," Guggenheim explained. "We start off the series with the apparent death of Sara Lance and the actual death of Robert Queen and a hero who murdered people. For better or worse, death is part of the show. What we're finding is that the show has to evolve. It has to change. As the show has evolved, so has death."
That evolution has a lot to do with The Flash, which introduced both time travel and the idea of alternate universes. One version of a character may die, but it's not unthinkable that we may see another version again. Despite that minor silver lining, a major character is still dying tonight, and nothing will ever be the same, according to Mericle.
"We do feel like it is a game changer in a very sad way in that we're losing a large character but also in the sense that big moves like this will open up new storytelling avenues and will force our characters to rethink their decisions and their objectives."
As for who's saying goodbye, all we know is that it's not Oliver (Stephen Amell) or Felicity (Emily Bett Rickards), and Felicity sure is mad about it, based on her reaction in the limo scene earlier in the season. Everyone else is fair game.
There's no real way to prepare yourselves to watch Team Arrow lose one of its own, so just accept the fact that you may cry, and that's OK. We'll be crying right along with you.
Come back right after the episode for our exclusive chat with Marc Guggenheim, and stay tuned for more scoop from the screening.
Arrow airs Wednesdays at 8 p.m. on the CW.