‘Arrow’ Season 3 Preview: Roy Gets Suited Up, Brandon Routh Makes His Debut

“Arrow” is back!

Season 3 of The CW drama kicks off at 8/7c on Wednesday night, ushering in a new era for Colton Haynes’ Roy Harper, who has an incredible new look as he helps Oliver Queen/The Arrow, Felicity Smoak and John Diggle fight crime in Starling City. The premiere episode sees Colton don red leather, his own hood and mask as Arsenal.

“That’s a big component of this season,” Executive Producer Marc Guggenheim said of Roy suiting up and really becoming a part of the team, as he spoke to TV reporters following a sneak peek screening of the episode last Friday.

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Roy will be fully in the fold this season, turning the crime fighting trio into a foursome.

“In [Episode] 212, we made a big deal about Roy joining the team and then didn’t get a chance to do that much with it because we were pushing a lot of other stories, and I think one of the fun things about Season 3 is we really get to play with that and you really feel like Roy is a part of Team Arrow,” Marc said, noting that the sixth episode of Season 3 will be very “Roy-centric.”

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For those interested in a backstory on how the suit came about, Marc made sure to note there is a comic book that “bridges the gap between Season 2 and Season 3.” (It is currently available via the DC Comics App among other places.)

Last season, while Mirakuru was coursing through his veins, Roy killed, and Colton said that at some point this season, his character will learn he took the life of a police officer.

“He’s eventually gonna find out that he did kill somebody, so dealing with the repercussions of that are gonna be really hard for him, and plus, he’s having to do it without Thea around, so that’s gonna be really hard, ” Colton said. “But I do know there’s going to be a few more love interests coming in and Thea, you know, she might be joining the dark side.”

Thea (Willa Holland) left with her real father, Malcolm Merlyn (John Barrowman) in the Season 2 finale. Both will return in Season 3.

“We’re going to get to see a lot of a bad John Barrowman, which is going to be hard because he’s the funniest person in the world,” Colton said of working alongside the “Torchwood” star. “He like, moons people off camera and tries to make us mess up our lines, so we’ll see. There’ll be a lot more of that.”

In related “Arrow” news, actor Brandon Routh makes his highly anticipated debut in Wednesday’s episode, playing Ray Palmer.

“We started off with this notion that a lot of third season dramas bring in a new character to sort of shake things up,” Marc said.

“It happens on dramas with great success, and we were thinking, who’s a kind of character we haven’t seen on the show and one thing that we haven’t seen is someone who can sort of play at Felicity’s level in terms of the banter. Felicity — we always say we write her as if she came in from a different show, but the problem is that she doesn’t have anyone else to talk to like that,” Marc said. “You can’t write sort of’ West Wing’-y banter with Felicity and anyone [else] because banter requires two people. Well, lo and behold, here’s Ray Palmer.”

Colton previously told Access that Brandon brings a new dynamic to the show.

“I can tell you he’s going to get in the way of the Olicity feels,” the actor said. “He’s gonna put a wrench in some of that.”

“Arrow” returns Wednesday at 8/7c on The CW.

Jolie Lash

 

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