We caught up with Arrow star Stephen Amell (aka Oliver Queen, aka The Green Arrow) at San Diego Comic-Con last month, and he had lots to say about the upcoming fourth season of the CW superhero drama. Here were some of the highlights. Full video is below.
A return of Oliver Queen’s public persona.
Last season’s theme of “identity” saw Oliver giving up his “Oliver Queen” persona in favor of embracing “The Arrow” and then “Al Sah-him.” Season 4 will see a return of the Oliver Queen we all know and love. Stephen teased: “One of the things that I feel like we lost by the mid-way point of Season 2 and all of Season 3 was the public persona of Oliver Queen. It’s a really important part of the show that I be out there doing things and, I will say, that — on the public persona side — people that are fans of the comic and the canon are going to be extremely excited about what we are doing in Season 4.”
The exploration of magic.
Though magic has already played a role in the Arrow universe with the introduction of the Lazarus Pit last year, Season 4 will make magic and mysticism and even more integral theme — both in present-day Star City and in the flashbacks. Stephen said: “There’s a nice little element of magic, of mysticism, this year, that I think will also tie into Oliver’s flashback story because, when it appears on the scene, it is something — as it normally is — that he is familiar with from his time away.”
Oliver’s social circle is fractured.
Though Oliver may have eventually chosen to embrace the Oliver Queen persona at the end of Season 3, that doesn’t mean that all of his friends have forgiven him from what he did as Al Sah-him. Stephen chatted about the status of Oliver’s most important relationships, saying: “He’s good with Thea, as long as she’s good with herself. I know that there will be some issues with Laurel, but I think that we’re going to move through those. He’s good with Felicity. Everything is on the table with Lance, so whether he loves or hates Oliver’s other persona, at least there’s no bullshitting anymore. But things with Diggle are bad. They’re really bad. There are certain lines that you can’t cross and, when you do, you can’t go back. And that’s what Oliver did.”
Olicity is happy, but one is more at peace than the other.
Though Stephen confirmed that Oliver and Felicity are happy when we meet back up with them in Season 4 after their five-month escape from Star City, he revealed that one will be more at peace than the other — and it might surprise you to discover which one: “We do get to see some of the interplay with them and they are very happy, but it’s interesting who is happier than the other one. Who is more at peace than the other one … Oliver’s totally at peace at the beginning of Season 4. We see that in an emotional sense and I almost feel like a body posture sense … We have a really cool way of actually physically seeing Oliver removing some of what has happened to him over the past eight years.” Could this be a reference to the removal of tattoos or, somehow, a few of the many scars that cover Oliver’s body?
Photo & Video by Kayti Burt. Copyright © 2015 The Televixen
