Interview: Marc Guggenheim Talks About Characters Learning The Arrow’s Secret (Possible Spoilers Within)

To promote the return of Arrow this Wednesday with “Suicide Squad,” Executive Producer Marc Guggenheim today participated in a Q&A session where he talked about many subjects, including the notion of so many characters learning Oliver Queen’s secret. With Diggle, Felicity, Sara and now Roy knowing about Oliver’s alter ego, could that list of people in the know keep growing?

“I would say it’s going to go up before the end of the year,” Guggenheim answered when a reporter asked him about the growing list. “By the finale, more people will know than currently do.”

“It’s funny, [and] we talk about this a lot in the writers’ room: Are there too many characters who know, and does it diminish the secret identity? Where we have come from is the philosophy that when people know – when members of our cast of characters know – it draws them into Oliver’s world, and it draws them into the show more, so we tend to get more story out of people knowing than people not knowing. You could say ‘well, too many people know,’ but the truth is, we use the Dark Knight Trilogy as our north star or compass, and a lot of people knew, particularly by the third movie, that Bruce Wayne was the Batman, and it doesn’t diminish my enjoyment of watching those stories unfold,” he explained.

“Obviously, different philosophies, different points of view,” he continued. “I wrote that line in Episode 12 about ‘how many people know?’ ‘Too many people,’ really, as a nod to the fans who have been complaining ever since episode 16 of last year, when we told Tommy, as a nod to those fans who do feel like it’s too many,” he recalled. “But for us, as writers: We always go towards whatever gives us more story and more interesting story, and for now at least, certain people knowing is more interesting than certain people not knowing.”

On that note, Quentin Lance (Paul Blackthorne’s character) was a detective… yet all this time around the Arrow, and now seeing his own daughter palling around with the Arrow when Oliver is nowhere to be seen: Shouldn’t that be a hint? What’s going on there?

“I will say, Episode 19 pretty definitively, I think, answers that question, as far as Lance is concerned. And the answer to that, I think, will surprise you. It’s not something that you would expect,” Guggenheim teased.

A new episode of Arrow titled “Suicide Squad” airs Wednesday night, March 19 on The CW. We will  have some more interview material before then… but if you can’t wait that long… how about some Flashy spoilers for Arrow’s 19th episode this season? Our thanks to The CW for arranging the Q&A.