It is time to unleash the beast – with the beast being Roy (Colton Haynes). After his ill-timed break-up with Thea (Willa Holland), she is promptly snatched up by Slade Wilson (Manu Bennett), placing her in dire jeopardy. So without Thea around to keep him calm and with her life in peril, Roy may just become the monster he has always feared.
On the opposite end of the spectrum, this episode seems to have been a pivotal turning point for Helena Bertinelli (Jessica de Gouw), who may be ready to finally hear that killing your enemies may not be the answer to all your problems. The rehabilitation of the Huntress has finally begun.
In last week’s press conference, special guest star Jessica de Gouw and executive producer Marc Guggenheim weighed in on the future paths of our heroes:
The Huntress
In the end of the episode, Helena seems to be awakening to the fact that Oliver (Stephen Amell) and his friends have a purpose and it is not always a dark purpose. Will we see that explored further?
MARC: For us, the advantage of bring the Huntress back at this point in Oliver’s arc is really the last scene between Oliver and Helena, it gave us a chance to sort of articulate how far Oliver has come in his evolution. Had he met Helena today, at this point in his evolution, maybe there wouldn’t even be a Huntress. Maybe he would have solved the problem of her vendetta in a different way. In Episode 107 and 108 last year, he was trying to channel her in some more positive direction — her anger and her vengeance — and I think left to his own devices now he would try a different way. The tragedy of 217 is just as he sort of developed this clarity in himself that he could pass on to her, Helena is of course in jail — for now. We definitely have a Season 3 idea for the Huntress.
JESSICA: I think the way this episode ends it puts her in such a different position and head-space as well. I think it has opened up a whole new set of possibilities for her because she was so set on one path for such a long time, and now that it has been realized, it’s not what she wanted. It just frees her up for an entirely different life.
Is Helena ultimately redeemable?
JESSICA: I do think she is. I think where she is at the end of this episode she is certainly in a place where she can be redeemed. It would be a very interesting thing to see her explore perhaps fighting for good or for very different reasons.
Thea Queen
What is behind the idea of separating Roy and Thea when she seems to be the only thing that keeps him in check?
MARC: It was to upset the apple cart with Roy and Thea. She is the only thing that keeps him in check because she keeps him grounded. It was also so if we were going to place Thea in jeopardy, we wanted Roy to feel some sense of complicity in that. . . Roy dealing with his sense of responsibility — basically, “had I not broken up with Thea in the previous episode, she might not be in Slade’s clutches right now” and how does Roy deal with that.
How much danger is Thea in now that she accepted that ride from Slade?
MARC: She’s in physical and emotional danger. . . I can guarantee that by the end of Episode 218 one of those blades is going to cut her. . . As always, things always happen sooner rather than later on ARROW. I will say that Thea learns something pretty massive in episode 218 and it will cause a tectonic-shift in her relationship with Oliver.
Will Thea find out that Malcolm Merlyn (John Barrowman) is her father?
MARC: The secret that Oliver and Moira (Susanna Thompson) have been keeping from Thea will cast a very long shadow over the rest of the season. That will play a pretty big role all the way up to the finale.
Arsenal
Why did Oliver call Roy “Speedy” in this episode?
MARC: “The reason we did it was we want to keep inching Roy towards an Arsenal place, and one of the running gags is he keeps getting called Speedy and he says, “I don’t like that nickname, come up with another nickname for me.” And when the time is right, eventually the name that will stick will be Arsenal. 
To see how Thea ultimately escapes the clutches of Slade and how she finds out the earth-shattering news that she never wants to hear, be sure to tune in for an all new episode of ARROW on Wednesday, April 2nd at 8:00 p.m. on the CW.
Tiffany Vogt is the Senior West Coast Editor, contributing as a columnist and entertainment reporter to TheTVaddict.com. She has a great love for television and firmly believes that entertainment is a world of wondrous adventures that deserves to be shared and explored – she invites you to join her. Please feel free to contact Tiffany at Tiffany_Vogt_2000@yahoo.com or follow her at on Twitter (@TVWatchtower).