Interview: EP Andrew Kreisberg Previews Arrow’s “Unthinkable” Season Finale

Do we need to have any tissues handy this week, like we did a few weeks ago?

I would. There’s a scene in here that I get misty, every time I watch it. Not necessarily because it’s sad, but more because it’s just so emotional. But, yes.

In the episode trailer, it appears Roy Harper has a costume of some sort. Might we get an official codename for him too, and what is going on with him in general?

He doesn’t have a full costume; he has a mask. Roy has been on a journey. We always say that if any character is really going to walk their comic book character’s path, they have to “go to the island.” We don’t necessarily mean Lian Yu; we just mean that they have to go through their baptism of fire the same way Oliver did, and this season, we set out in the beginning to say this was going to be the worst year of Roy Harper’s life, and it was. He’s coming out on the other side of it. As I said earlier, with everybody embracing their destiny, Roy, I think, is finally ready to embrace the hero’s path, and it’s going to be fun and exciting for the fans to see where that takes him.

So that means no code name yet?

No code name yet. You’ve gotta leave something for Season 3, right?

Can you talk about all of the guest stars that we have to look forward to Wednesday night, most of whom are in the promo photos?

That was something that we very consciously thought of, especially when we were building the season, when we introduced the League of Assassins, and introduced the Suicide Squad, because we knew from the very beginning that Slade’s agenda was going to be to make an army like himself, and that they would take on the city, to give it a different, ground level, visceral scare, as opposed to the earthquake device in Season 1. So if you’re facing an army, you need an army to fight them.

That’s why we very consciously introduced these other factions throughout the season, knowing that we were going to bring them together to all fight on the side of good against Slade. It’s been fun to see that come to fruition.

The one nice thing about characters like Deadshot, played by Michael Rowe, and Nyssa, played by Katrina Law, is that they all are a little bit larger than life, which also allows them to inject humor into scenes, because our stalwarts are usually very stoic, especially given what they’re up against. So, when you have Nyssa come in, she’s good for two or three solid laughs in the episode, as is Deadshot. As grounded emotionally as we try to make the show, it is still a big, giant popcorn superhero show, so it’s nice to have those moments of levity.

The Arrow season finale airs this Wednesday night, May 14 on The CW. If all this isn’t enough reason to watch, there will be a preview of the new CW series The Flash – a spin-off from Arrow – that night! Our thanks to Andrew Kreisberg for doing this interview, and to all of Team Arrow for a great season!

Preview images for “Unthinkable” can be found here.