VANCOUVER, BC. A familiar face and a familiar name will arrive in Starling City on Wednesday (October 29) night's episode of “Arrow.”
As The CW has been heavily promoting, Katrina Law will be back as Nyssa Al Ghul, League of Assassins veteran and daughter to the famous Ra's Al Ghul. As we learned last season, Nyssa had a rather close relationship with the late Sara Lance, so her return is likely to be intense.
“She's a ticking time bomb,” Star Stephen Amell told reporters on the Vancouver set of “Arrow” two weeks ago. “She leaves [Episode] 4 as a ticking time bomb and Oliver leaves with a whole host of new enemies. But it's very much… He feels very much as though it's his responsibility to bring whoever did this to justice. And I will say that of all of the convoluted, devious plans that we've ever had on the show, the 'Who killed Canary?' device is right at the top.”
Amell added, “There's an opportunity for them to work in concert in Episode 4, but Oliver's methods and Nyssa's methods don't match up. She's the “Shoot them all, figure it out afterwards” and Oliver's like, 'I used to be that way! I'm not anymore.' So that creates the conflict for them. But Katrina [Law] has been excellent this year. We've seen her a few times now and it's always a treat, I think, that she has fleshed out the Nyssa character… And I think it's been probably helpful for Matt [Nable], who's been playing her father and having such a strong, fleshed out character as his daughter has probably given him a really nice signpost for how to play Ra's.”
Remarkably, our chat with Amell went nearly 20 minutes without anybody mentioning the appearance of Ra's al Ghul, the iconic DC supervillain played by Liam Neeson in “Batman Begins.” It was announced at Comic-Con that Ra's would be coming to “Arrow” this season, while former Aussie rugby league football Nable was cast in the role back in September.
“He's great,” Amell said of Nable. “I had my first opportunity to work with him recently and he's wonderful. He's really good. The character has a very worldly feel without being… I wouldn't call it 'exotic' at all. When I saw the reveal of his wardrobe of at Comic-Con, I thought 'Somewhat exotic,' but he grounds it and he puts it into our world. Very excited for his development on the show.”
Amell teased, “People are going to, really if you're a fan of comics, you're really going to enjoy the reveal of Ra's al Ghoul, I mean like the first frames of seeing him. That's gonna be pretty cool. It's gonna create a lot of chatter.”
So expect that chatter to begin on Wednesday night.
Check out the video above for a choppy representation of some of Amell's interview with reporters. It also includes the actor's diss of Twitter and his explanation for why Facebook is the Justin Timberlake of social media.
And check back in a couple weeks for Amell's tease of the “Arrow”/”Flash” episode and why even in the lighter “Flash” environment he doesn't get to smile.
“Arrow” airs Wednesdays at 8 p.m. on The CW.