Arrow Producers Talk About The Nyssa & Black Canary Connection

Warning, West Coasters: Spoilers for tonight’s episode of Arrow, titled “Heir To The Demon,” are being discussed within.

In a world where major TV show moments are spoiled at every turn, it might have taken viewers by surprise today when Nyssa Raatko, daughter of Ra’s al Ghul, and Sara Lance (Black Canary) were reunited on tonight’s Arrow… and we find out that they were former lovers.

Such effort was made to keep secrecy that fake casting sides were put out for Nyssa — possibly those “Lisa” sides from earlier this year — and even in the early stages of casting, chemistry tests were done between potential “Lisa”s and Stephen Amell. Then, when they found their right actress, they had her screen test for chemistry with Caity Lotz… and the rest is history.

But where did this idea come from?

We spoke with Arrow Executive Producers Andrew Kreisberg and Marc Guggenheim earlier this week for some more back story.

“It was really more about Sara than anything else,” Kreisberg said, pointing out that hints of this were dropped as early as this season’s fifth episode, where there is a reference to “the beloved” and someone telling Sara that “you think that’s going to keep you safe.”

But whose “beloved” would Sara be? “We talked about, ‘does Ra’s al Ghul have a son?’ and then ‘Could it be Talia?’ and we felt like Talia had just been done in the movies. One of our writers had actually brought up the idea of Nyssa. It just felt like something new and different, and at the same time, we didn’t do it to be salacious. I mean, it’s a pretty chaste relationship, from what you see on screen. For us, it just sort of touched on a couple of interesting things. The idea that Sara found herself in this terrible world and found this one person who treated her with love and kindness,” Kreisberg recalled, pointing out that that love and kindness was enough to even get to Sara’s hardened, tough father, Quentin Lance.

“For Lance, that this sort of hardened, tough cop who’s probably not the most progressive guy, that even he was like ‘I’m just glad you had somebody who loved you and took care of you during those nightmare years.’ Those little moments just felt like they would be special and play for us,” Andrew continued.

Marc Guggenheim pointed out that labels should not be put on anyone, at least in their own preference. “In the same episode where we reveal that Sara had had this lesbian relationship, she also is sleeping with Oliver again, and we really wanted to approach it like not be salacious, and be sensitive, and be realistic. We actually specifically avoid using the term ‘bisexual.’ We didn’t want to label her at all. Let her be her own person. If the audience wants to label, fine, but we wanted to not make it like it’s that specific. It is a very specific relationship to Sara and Nyssa, and maybe Sara’s had other female relationships in her past, but we’ll get to that in due course, when it’s right and if it’s right. But we want to not just do something to shock,” Guggenheim said.

Now that Nyssa has seemingly released Sara from her responsibilities to the League of Assassins, is Ra’s al Ghul really going to let her go? And will we see him? “As far as the Ra’s al Ghul of it is concerned, this was not Katrina’s only appearance of the season,” Kreisberg said. “As far as what the Sara of it means… part of the reason we did this episode was to free Sara, at least for the time being, from the throe of the League of Assassins and allow her to fully be the Black Canary, and come home, and all the delicious implications that that brought In the next couple of episodes, you’re really going to see how Sara’s return affects everybody, and hopefully people will be surprised by the reaction,” he added. And as for the man himself, will we see him? “We really can’t comment on when or if you’ll see Ra’s, and how he’ll pronounce his name,” Guggenheim said.

“I think in the same way that we did with Season 1, we set up the seeds of Season 2 in Season 1, and hopefully – we haven’t been given the go-ahead for Season 3 yet – [but] we’ve thought of the show as this multi-year, epic arc, and that things get introduced and paid off later, and this is one of those epic things that is being introduced now,” Andrew said.

For those who haven’t seen “Heir To The Demon” yet, watch it! If you have seen it, come talk about it on our forum. The next new episode of Arrow after this one airs February 26, and is called “Time Of Death!” Poke around GreenArrowTV in a few minutes and you’ll probably find a trailer.