“Arrow” season 6 finally came to an end this week, but the season didn’t exactly have a happy ending.
In the end, Ricardo Diaz got away, but not before he took out someone who is very close to Team Arrow.
At one point in the episode, Diaz tried to shoot Black Siren, but Quentin Lance jumped in front of her and got hit with the bullet, then he later died in the hospital.
It was recently confirmed that Paul Blackthorne would not be returning for season 7, and fans wondered if he would survive the finale. We got out answer last night, and executive producer Marc Guggenheim told EW that it was a hard decision to kill off Quentin.
“Well, it was a really hard decision whenever we kill off the character on the show. But it’s funny, when I was pitching that particular beat to Greg [Berlanti], he said, “Wow I’ll really miss him,” but he made the point that the show has always had sort of a Game of Thrones-like element to it in the sense that no one is safe. That’s always been part and parcel of the show. We haven’t killed off a character in a season finale since season 1. But fundamentally, the reason we did it was sort of two-fold. We really felt that we had come to the end of Lance’s story, but primarily, whenever we kill off a character, it’s always out of, well what does this get us? What story consequences does this lead to that excite us? The idea that Diaz is responsible for Lance’s death has huge ramifications for Laurel’s character and her story line. That really intrigued us as we started talking about where Laurel was headed in season 7. As has been the case with every other death on the show, once we start getting excited about those consequences and start getting excited about the stories that the death leads to, it kind of takes on its own momentum.”
Paul Blackthorne will certainly be missed, but Guggenheim had nothing but good things to say about his experience working with Paul.
“It was hard. Paul has been with us since the beginning, he’s an absolute joy to work with. He’s just a class act. I really, really enjoyed working with Paul so much over the last six years. It was the right time, and the right way, and the right story to tell at this moment.”
“Arrow” will return for season 7 in the fall.
