Arrow's 100th episode forced Oliver Queen to look at how different his life could have been had he never become the Green Arrow. It's a familiar plotting device for comic book TV shows and one that worked well for Arrow as it reflected on its past five season.
"There’s a reason why these stories are iconic or familiar tropes even in comic books," executive producer Marc Guggenheim said at an "Invasion!" screening event. "It’s because when you show the protagonist the path not taken and you basically put them in the situation where they can choose to stay on that path or go back to their life with all of its ugly aspects and challenges, and they choose the selfless choice of returning to that ugly past, it makes your character stronger because, it’s like I said earlier, it forced Oliver to double down on his mission and commit to this life with all of its losses and failures and challenges."
Spoilers for Arrow's latest episode "Invasion!" continue below.
The 100th episode came in the midst of the Arrowverse's "Invasion!" crossover. While the episode continued to move the crossover plot forward, the Dominators kidnapping Oliver, Thea, Diggle, Sara and Ray was just a means to get them in a Matrix-like alternate reality where they were forced to encounter some familiar, departed friends and foes.
"That was the challenge was just how much to service the 100th episode-ness and how much to service the crossover," Guggenheim said. "I think it’s pretty obvious that we chose to go 100th episode, but it was totally a challenge. It was Greg [Berlanti]’s idea to have our five Arrow people and basically enter them into -- we call it the matrix, lowercase 'M' -- the Dominator matrix, and that allowed us to have our cake and eat it too."
Key to making the 100th episode was work was getting back some of the characters who were pivotal in the early days of Arrow. While some weren't able to make it due to timing conflicts -- including Colin Donnell, Colton Haynes and Manu Bennett -- three very important actors did return: Katie Cassidy, Susanna Thompson and Jamey Sheridan.
"Watching the early episodes and watching the 100th and seeing Oliver have scenes with his mom and especially the scene with Thea and Moira, and remembering how important [Moira] was to the mythology and these characters and to everything that happened -- that was the thing that made it feel like a 100th episode," said Andrew Kreisberg. "Our first mission was to make sure we lock in those cast and we were fortunate that everybody who has left the show was so excited to come back."
The whole episode hinges around an alternate universe where important people in Oliver's life are gathering around him on his wedding day... to the late Laurel Lance. The Dominators forced Oliver, Thea and the rest of the kidnapped heroes to see how life could have been different if Oliver had never gone on the Queen's Gambit and never became a superhero; like The Flash's "Flashpoint" and Supergirl's "For the Girl Who Has Everything," it offered Oliver a glimpse about what life could be if he was happy.
That life would have involved Laurel Lance, his first great love. Despite killing her off in Season 4, Kreisberg and Guggenheim knew they wanted Laurel to be a central figure in the 100th episode and the final challenge Oliver had to overcome in order to return to his true reality.
"Even though the show has evolved, Laurel is at the heart of it. She was Oliver's great love, she's Sarah's sister, she's Lance's daughter," said Kreisberg. "Even if we do get to 200 episodes, Laurel will always be at the heart of the series and be such an important character and, on top of that, Katie Cassidy will always be so important to us. We were so happy that she agreed to come back because she is part of the family, both behind the camera and in front of it."
The final hologram scene before Oliver leaves the Dominators' fantasy world forces him to come face-to-face with those who were closest to him. Because Arrow couldn't get Haynes or Donnell to return, Guggenheim came up with a way to get around their absence by having a special effects house bring them to the show.
"That beat was not in the original break of the episode," said Guggenheim. "It was just I was writing that scene where Oliver goes back and it just popped into my head that basically all the actors that we can’t get, at the time I didn’t know who we could get and who we couldn’t, I’m like, 'This is a way we can get them.' And props to our visual effects house, Zoic, handled those shots and they did an amazing, amazing job, particularly with Colin and with Colton, because we couldn't reshoot them. We had to take them from old episodes and roto them out and put them into this. It was hard, obviously, because they had to work with pre-existing footage. Yes, they had 99 episodes to choose from, but it was a lot harder than it makes it sound. They did an incredible, incredible job, as they always do."
The intention is to have Arrow continue to be influenced by Oliver's revelations in the 100th episode moving forward. In next week's midseason finale, "Oliver sort of has a new sense of purpose," said Guggenheim. "The events of 508, basically, forced him to emotionally double down on his mission, so he goes into 509 with a new sense of purpose, and I would say, also, a reaffirmation of his bond with Thea, because they basically chose each other in 508. That carries through the midseason finale and, obviously, sets up things beyond it."
What did you think of Arrow's 100th episode? Let us know in the comments below.
Terri Schwartz is Entertainment Editor at IGN. Talk to her on Twitter at @Terri_Schwartz.
Aucun commentaire:
Enregistrer un commentaire