‘Arrow’ Season 5: Marc Guggenheim On Oliver’s New Recruits

Oliver
Queen (Stephen Amell) has a big task on his hands in Wednesday’s “Arrow” – training a
crop of vigilantes-in-the-making.

There’s
Wild Dog (Rick Gonzalez), Evelyn Sharp (Madison McLaughlin) and Team Arrow
associate Curtis (Echo Kellum). And although he’s in shape, Curtis, for one,
won’t find it easy.

“[W]e knew going into this season
that we were going to have Curtis start transitioning into Mister Terrific, but
we also knew that that’s a very, very big turn for him because he’s the one who’s got the least experience
fighting people,” “Arrow” Executive Producer Marc Guggenheim
told Access Hollywood. “Even Laurel … it was always sort of said that
Laurel had taken self defense classes. Curtis is an Olympic-caliber athlete, and that’s all well
and good, and certainly makes him more suited to do this than say I am, but
it’s still a tall order and that’s something that we’ve always wanted to
acknowledge in the storytelling. You should definitely anticipate poor Curtis
taking his share of licks because he’s got a long road ahead of him.”

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Newcomer
Wild Dog already looks to have a foot in the vigilante game, and he will
challenge Oliver.

“Certainly
if Curtis faces the challenge of just doing this and Oliver faces the challenge
of trying to … accomplish training Curtis and turning him into a
vigilante, with Wild Dog is a very different challenge. It’s a challenge of
just getting this guy to listen to him and follow anything resembling an
order and that’s going to be tricky,” Marc said. “I will say, it’s
been a great deal of fun sort of watching Oliver interact with someone who does not follow orders at all. That’s a real issue for Oliver as one
might imagine.”

WATCH: ‘Arrow’ Season 5: Echo Kellum Talks Curtis Taking On The Salmon Ladder

“His
patience is tried in Season 5 with Wild Dog,” Marc added. “It’s a
real challenge.”

Season
5 introduced a new villain – Tobias Church, played by “Walking Dead”
alum Chad L. Coleman. And, fans will learn more about Tobias’ plans as the episodes roll out.

“I
think Chad is terrific and that’s a fun character to write for. I think one of
the things that makes Church a compelling villain is he’s not just about taking
down the Green Arrow,” Marc said. “He’s got a much sort of larger
agenda in play. He’s got bigger sights than just the Green Arrow. He’s got
other plans.”

Could those plans be on a global scale?

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“We sort of laid in a few hints to it in [episode] 501. I would say that his plans are not exactly global. It’s not
world domination, but there’s a reason he came to Star City and that reason
does expand beyond the boundaries of Star City, and you’ll have to keep watching
to see what the holy heck it is I’m talking about,” he said.

“Arrow”
continues Wednesday at 8/7c on The CW.

— Jolie Lash