We chatted with 'Arrow's executive producer (and keeper of all the secrets) Marc Guggenheim about why [Spoiler!] had to die.
WARNING: We're about to recap the most jaw-dropping moment from tonight's season three premiere of Arrow. If you don't want to be spoiled, turn away now. For everyone else, grab some tissues and read on…
What the &$#! just happened?
Crushed. Devastated. Heartbroken…. The list of gut-wrenching emotions that our fellow Arrow fans are experiencing right now goes on and on. After a solid A++ season three premiere jam-packed with adrenaline-pumping action, and swoon-worthy moments, the powers-that-be at Arrow ripped the rug out from underneath us in the episode's final scene.
Here's What Happened: Sara (Caity Lotz) took yet another mini-vacay from the League of Assassins tonight and returned to Starling City. After helping Team Arrow triumphantly defeat another vertigo outbreak, and sharing an oh-so sweet sister moment with Laurel (Katie Cassidy) over looking the city, Sara was confronted by an unknown assailant on the roof.
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And before we could even take a guess at who was making our badass Black Canary look so terrified, the dark figure shot Sara in the stomach with multiple arrows. As if that wasn't terrifying enough, the shock caused Sara to stumble back off the edge of the building, and fall to her death. Noooooooo!
That's right, Sara Lance was murdered, and while you're trying to cope with this shocking death, we've got the answers you're looking for. As promised, ETonline chatted with Arrow's executive producer (and keeper of all the secrets) Marc Guggenheim about why Sara had to die and how this death will affect the rest of our crime-fighting characters in season three.
Read on for the answers, but make sure you have plenty of tissues…
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Of all the characters, why did you have to kill off Sara—aka our beloved Black Canary?
Marc Guggenheim: It was hard. Every time we kill off a character on the show it’s always incredibly, incredibly hard. We're not Game of Thrones, and it's really, really, really difficult for us… But as with Tommy's death, as with Moira's death, the story implications for this development are so far reaching for the show and it affects all of the characters.
It really kicks everything off. It kicks off a mystery that will drive us for at least the first half of the year. It will set Laurel on a trajectory that we've never had before on the show. It will create all of these other complications and dynamics... And it buys us a lot of story and it speaks to all of the things we wanted to do this year in terms of Laurel's character, in terms of Oliver's character, in terms of Felicity's character. It's always a hard thing to do but it really is an engine that drives the whole third season.
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Are we going to see Caity Lotz as Sara again this season?
MG: You're going to see her in the next episode, and then you're going to see her again in at least another episode. The truth is we have stories that we want to tell that involve Caity Lotz. One of the beautiful parts of the show is that we do flashbacks, and we still want to tell the story of what happened when Sara washed up on the shores of Lian Yu after the events of 223 and the sinking of the Amazo and how she met Nyssa and how she joined the League of Assassins. There's still a lot of story to be left to be told with Sara, and we did make a contract with Caity for three episodes. You certainly haven't seen the last of her.
Looking ahead, how will the news of Sara's death affect our characters in episode two?
MG: Honestly 302 is probably our most emotionally gut-wrenching episode, as it needs to be and as it should be. This character's death affects all of the characters on the show and it's kind of brutal. I don’t want to say too much but we chose the title "Sara" because it actually has a double meaning and I really don’t want to say more than that. There's the question of what should be done with Sarah body, there's the question of who do they tell? Do they tell Lance for example that his daughter died a second time?
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There's the emotional repercussion for everybody, but it definitely has repercussions for Oliver and Felicity, and it has repercussions for Felicity and Ray Palmer, and obviously for Laurel. Laurel is very much at the center of that episode, and we're also going to turn to a suspect in the killing. With us you never know how soon things will get resolved or in what way they'll get resolved, but 302 is one of our best episodes. I'm really, really happy with it.
If you're prone to tears or capable of crying from watching a TV show, you'll probably be crying in this one… This episode is actually the first time that we've really taken our time and really spent time with these characters in the wake of a major character's death.
What did you think of Arrow's gut-wrenching season 3 twist? Were you shocked when Sara was killed? Sound off in the comments below!
