NEWS/ Tommy Merlyn Is Returning to Arrow—But There's a Twist! 

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We\'re still not over the death of Tommy Merlyn (Colin Donnell) on

. We even tear up just thinking about that emotional goodbye between Tommy and Oliver (Stephen Amell) in the season one finale!

Since Tommy\'s death, we\'ve been overjoyed to see him return to the CW series twice. First, as a hallucination in the season two episode "Three Ghosts," and then in flashbacks earlier this season in "Sara."

And now we can exclusively reveal that Tommy is once again returning to

this season! Executive producer Marc Guggenheim revealed that amazing news to us...but warned us that there\'s a twist.

: When we saw Tommy return earlier this season—in a flashback—I absolutely loved seeing him back on the show! Is there any chance we\'ll be able to see him later on this season again?

We love Colin Donnell and we love having him on the show. I was on set for his scene at the end of season one and the second we wrapped him, I said to him, "I\'m so glad we do flashbacks on this show!" So yes, you have not seen the last of Tommy Merlyn.

Though I will say this, the next time you see Tommy Merlyn, you will see him again on the show but it won\'t be the way you\'re expecting.

We\'re about to meet Carrie Cutter, aka Cupid (played by

alum Amy Gumenick)! How is Oliver going to react to her rabid obsession with him?

[Laughs] It\'s interesting! I will say this—it\'s going to send Oliver to therapy...

Wait...what?! He\'s not actually going to be laying down on a couch, talking out his emotions with someone, right?

There won\'t be any laying down on a couch, but Oliver will be seeing a therapist.

I can\'t even imagine what that would look like seeing as how Oliver constantly lies about every aspect of his life.

The final scene of last week\'s episode pretty much gave me a heart attack. What can you tease or reveal about why Roy (Colton Haynes) is dreaming about murdering Sara (Caity Lotz)?

Well, I can\'t reveal anything! You know me. But I can certainly tease that as Felicity [Emily Bett Rickards] will say in the episode, memories are often resurfaced in dreams. What you saw may not actually be a dream at all but rather a memory of something that happened.

Well, crap. Does that mean that we should suspect Roy as Sara\'s murderer?

Um...maybe? We\'ve certainly does crazier things on the show!

That is very true! How is Felicity going to help Roy with this memory/dream situation?

They\'re going to have some rather intense scenes together. One of the fun things about it is the fact that we have not actually had too many one on one scenes between Felicity and Roy. Usually they\'re having their scenes in the context of Team Arrow in general. It\'s fun to see Colton and Emily share the screen together. They\'re terrific together and they\'re very close friends in real life and that shows up on screen.

Ray Palmer (Brandon Routh) is about to take Felicity out on a date. Should Olicity fans be worried?

Well, I\'ve never known Olicity fans to not be worried! There are two types of Olicity fans. There are the ones who want them to be married with a kid or two or three in the next episode, and then there are the ones who favor the slow burn, on-again/off-again, one step forward two steps back kind of relationship. Certainly the fact that we\'ve released a promo showing Ray Palmer kissing Felicity suggests that the approach we\'re taking is very much the latter.

MORE: Why does Brandon Routh think he\'s doomed on

Laurel (Katie Cassidy) is well on her way to becoming Black Canary now that she\'s in training. How long of a journey is that going to be for her?

It depends on how you define "journey." What Laurel is going to discover is that being a hero is more than wearing a mask and that wearing a mask and costume does not a hero make. It\'s not going to be an easy road for Laurel no matter how quickly she suits up.

crossover episode is going to reveal a big secret about Oliver. What can you tease about what that secret is?

We\'re going to answer a question that fans have been asking us for a while now. It\'s honestly such a big secret that I don\'t even want to come close to spoiling it. It\'s fairly major. It\'s one of the biggest bombs we\'ve ever dropped on the show, except we\'re not even doing it on the show! We\'re doing it on

We briefly saw Ra\'s al Ghul (Matt Nable) when he declared war on Oliver. How are we going to see that war commence?

Oooh. That\'s going to be the question that much of the third season will be spending time with. The consequences of episode 4 are really explored in episode 9 which is our midseason finale. By the end of episode 9, you\'ll have seen a whole lot of Nyssa [Katrina Law] and Ra\'s al Ghul and the League of Assassins.

Talking about what started that war to begin with, now that Malcolm (John Barrowman) is under Oliver\'s protection, what is his next move?

Malcolm does have a game plan. You\'ll see what he has up his sleeve by the end of the midseason finale as well. A lot of cards will have gotten turned over by the time we reach our midseason point.

is about to stage the most awkward double-date ever in the first

What can you tell me about what we\'ll see in flashbacks in the next few episodes?

We\'ve been doing a lot of table setting with the flashbacks. I would say starting in episode 9, once the chess board has been set, we\'ll start to see some real interesting twists and turns and reversals. We\'re planning on doing something in the flashbacks later on in the year that I think most people will find to be wholly unexpected and probably the last thing anyone expected us to do with the flashbacks, but we\'re going to end up doing it!

I loved what we learned about Felicity in the last episode, but now that Team Arrow knows these darks secrets about her past, is that going to change how anyone sees or treats her?

Everyone on the team has great affection for Felicity. Certainly no one is judging her for what happened in episode 5. I think if anything the events of that episode made Felicity feel a little bit more human and pointed out the fact that they didn\'t know her as well as they thought they did.

What are you most excited for fans to see from these next few episodes?

Ooh. I\'ve got to tell you, it\'s a photo finish between episode 8 which is

crossover and episode 9 which is the midseason finale. They\'re my two favorite episodes of the show that we\'ve ever done!

I\'m really proud of them. They\'re two very different kinds of episodes, but I think that\'s one of the reasons why I\'m excited about them. They really show the length and breadth the show can live in. Episode 8 is a really crazy superhero crossover story and episode 9 is a really crazy midseason finale where a bunch of cards get turned over. It\'s epic. I hope they live up to my hype! But I\'m pretty confident they will.

filed under Arrow, TV, Top Stories, Watch With Kristin

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