[SPOILERS for Arrow season 4 ahead.]
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One of The CW’s first superhero shows, Arrow has become the network’s mainstay over the last four seasons. After its early success with critics and viewers alike it was used to spinoff both The Flash and Legends of Tomorrow. The show began with a focus on Oliver Queen (Stephen Amell) as he returned to the then-Starling City after being presumed dead for five years. It quickly expanded to center around more of a team as Oliver’s bodygaurd John Diggle (David Ramsey) and IT expert Felicity Smoak (Emily Bett Rickards) joined him in his fight against crime.
After three seasons of back and fourth Oliver and Felicity began Season 4 in a state of domestic bliss, having left the vigilante life behind in favor of travelling the world and perfecting Oliver’s cooking skills. Of course they were immediately pulled back to Star City soon after to help fight off Damien Dahrk and his ghosts terrorizing the city. Now engaged and planning their wedding, many thought that the surprise reveal of Oliver’s secret son William would mark the end of their relationship, and stop the planned wedding. New set photos indicate that this might not be the case.
Executive Producer Marc Guggenheim has released a new set photo (via Twitter) that shows Oliver and Felicity standing together at the alter, behind married under a white canopy. The most striking thing about this image is that Felicity, who has been wheelchair bound for the last few weeks after being shot by Dahrk’s men, is standing as well indicating that Curtis Holt’s (Echo Kellum) wedding-present cure worked. Check out the image, below.
Bam. @amellywood @EmilyBett @MericlesHappen pic.twitter.com/NY1Ih8KkW3— Marc Guggenheim (@mguggenheim) February 24, 2016
Clearly anticipating the massive amount of speculation and theorizing this would cause - or perhaps because of it - a day later he tweeted out this qualifying statement about the image, which if true, constitutes quite a large spoiler for the show.
Not a dream sequence. Not a hallucination. Not an alternate reality. Not a flash forward to a potential future. pic.twitter.com/RfvpKmmjOk— Marc Guggenheim (@mguggenheim) February 24, 2016
During the Arrow/Flash crossover we saw what happens when Felicity discovers that Oliver has been lying to her about having a child: she ends the relationship. While that particular timeline was erased thanks to Barry Allen, the episode trailer for ‘Taken’ shows Felicity learning the truth. With the following episode titled ‘Broken Hearts’ and a grave-flash forward showing Felicity sans ring, a broken engagement seems inevitable. The most plausible answer for how the two legitimately get the alter is that Guggenheim is taking advantage of the “potential future” loophole, and showing us a set image from the end of Season 4 episodes that they are filming now. This way they are separated though the grave flash-forward, reuniting after. It’s a bit of a stretch but with the world bending taking place on both Flash and Legends, it would explain it. It’s also possible, though not entirely plausible, that this is a fake-wedding, done to catch a criminal like Cupid, who is slated to return for this week’s episode.
Regardless of how they end up getting married, this image seems to point to the show not dragging Oliver and Felicity back through the will-they-wont-they territory of earlier seasons. Committing their two leads to one relationship is a bold move, and many are worried that the show will suffer from the Moonlighting-curse, losing the thrill and interest once the main relationship is settled down. Based on all of the action and drama we’ve seen so far, this seems to be a pit fall Arrow has so far avoided.
Arrow continues this Wednesday with ‘Taken’ @8pm on The CW.
Source: Marc Guggenheim
