‘Arrow’ season 3 spoilers: Ra’s al Ghul finally confirmed as Big Bad
Great news, “Arrow” fans. After weeks of waiting and constant rumors, the show’s executive producers have finally confirmed that Ra’s al Ghul will be the primary villain on the show’s upcoming third season. This ends the rumors of Malcolm Merlyn being the chief villain, or Ray Palmer somehow going against the comics and developing a vengeance for Oliver Queen.
The seeds for the show were already in motion for this to happen long ago, in between the introduction of Nyssa and some of the other Easter eggs that were hidden in past episodes. Just take a look at what executive producer Marc Guggenheim said to reporters at Comic-Con this weekend:
“It really happened very organically in the sense that we had this notion that in episode 16 we were going to reveal that Malcolm Merlyn was trained by the League of Assassins and that’s because that’s because of the comic book. We were like, ‘you know what we’re going to do? We’re going to get away with a little reference about a guy in Nanda Parbat who changed his life’ … That was just the beginning.”
You can get a glimpse of the show’s vision for the character in the new teaser trailer below, and the plan for now is to make this character very different than the version featured in “Batman Begins.” This is the only challenge with bringing him onto the show; while Deathstroke and Merlyn were pretty new to modern viewers, some out there may already have a specific memory of what they expect Ra’s to be.
We still love the inclusion of him for the time being. This helps to inform the stories of Malcolm and Sara Lance, and gives us an interesting villain who does not have the same sort of organic connection to Oliver.
What do you think: Is Ra’s the right man for the job this year? Let us know in the comments, and head over here if you want to get some further updates from the show’s panel this weekend. You can also sign up to get some more targeted TV updates sent to you via our newsletter.
Photo: The CW