Arrow type TV Show network The CW genre Superhero

Surprise: Roy Harper is the Arrow. Raise your hand if you believe him. Crickets?

Arrow fans won’t be the only one questioning Roy’s (Colton Haynes) sudden declaration that he’s Starling City’s hooded savior. Let’s not forget, Lance (Paul Blackthorne) already knows that Roy is Arsenal, so despite Roy’s bid to save Oliver (Stephen Amell), the dogged police captain will still be setting his sights on taking Ollie down.

Oliver, meanwhile, will try to protect his young protégé as the League of Assassins puts increasing pressure on the Emerald Archer to become the new Ra’s al Ghul—which, based on the recent promos, will soon come to fruition. Will Roy come out of this alive? And will Felicity (Emily Bett Rickards) bid a special goodbye to the soon-to-be Heir to the Demon? EW caught up with executive producer Marc Guggenheim to get the scoop.

EW: Even though Roy has taken the fall for Oliver, is Lance still coming after Oliver?

MARC GUGGENHEIM: Yeah. It’s funny, after episode 18 aired, a lot of people were tweeting at me going, “Wait a minute, Lance already knew Roy was Arsenal. He’s not going to fall for this.” While not necessarily agreeing or disagreeing, that’s why I want to encourage people to check out episode 19, because we have not forgotten the fact that Lance is already aware that Roy is a different superhero. As a result, Lance is in possession of information that the rest of Starling City isn’t in possession of. How Lance reacts to the end of episode 18 is going to be very interesting in comparison to how the rest of the city reacts.

What kind of danger is Roy in now after taking the fall for Oliver and ending up in prison alongside many of the bad guys that Team Arrow put there in the first place?

I think those guys in prison are all really understanding. They knew that Roy had a job to do and they’re chill guys. They’re actually very nice and very misunderstood. I personally can’t see it working out as anything other than awesome, but I’ve also been known to been wrong before. [Laughs] It might turn out to be pretty complicated for poor Roy.

We know the cast had been tweeting about a possible goodbye, so should we be even more worried about Roy’s fate?

Purely judging from my Twitter feed, it seems like a lot of people are worried. You’re definitely going to want to watch 19, or not watch 19, as the case may be depending on how you feel about Roy. I’d definitely check it out. I will say the shot of the knife or the shiv being passed forward in prison didn’t bode too well. That was ominous.

What steps might Oliver take to try to protect Roy?

Oliver’s first instinct is to try to break Roy out of prison, but there’s a whole lot of practical reasons why that isn’t a good idea and isn’t even possible. As Felicity says to Oliver in episode 19, she’s seen him do a lot of amazing things, but breaking someone out of prison seems a little bit beyond his capabilities.

Based on the promos depicting Oliver in the League of Assassins garb, he’ll be accepting Ra’s al Ghul’s offer. Can you talk about how that changes not just his mission, but him as a person and the show moving forward?

When you watch episodes 18 and 19 back to back, you’ll see that we well and truly blow up the franchise. Then in episode 20, Oliver really has no choice but to join the League. The show really becomes a different show. In fact, we just recorded a new saga sell for episode 21 because the old saga sell became obsolete. I really just mention to explain how fundamentally different the show is in its final three episodes of the season.

I’m sure Oliver’s hand is forced and he has to join the League, but will he try to find the best in it?

I don’t want to say one way or the other because part of the fun of the final three episodes is discovering life in the League through Oliver’s eyes and experiencing what Oliver experiences. There’s quite a few changes, twists and turns over the course of those last three episodes that I’d rather let people be surprised by.

How does Team Arrow feel about Oliver leaving them?

That’s probably the big emotional journey and story. Dealing with the emotional fallout of Oliver joining the League is really the essence of episode 21. It’s very much a Team Arrow-centric episode, as you’d might expect, as everyone has to come to grips with what Oliver has done.

We saw in the promo that Oliver and Felicity appear to be hooking up. Is that a goodbye hookup?

They appear to be hooking up. Honestly, I really don’t want to spoil it. I want the promo to speak for itself and I like the fact that people are speculating about: Is it a goodbye? Is it a dream? Is it a hallucination? What’s going on? On Arrow, the one thing that is consistent is that it’s incredibly inconsistent and hopefully always doing something unexpected and surprising. Things can happen on Arrow that happen in a way that’s very different than what is necessarily suggested by the promos, in some instances.

Arrow airs Wednesdays at 8 p.m. ET on The CW. Check out an exclusive sneak peek from this week’s episode: