'Arrow's' Paul Blackthorne: Captain Lance Is on the 'Warpath' to Bring Down Oliver Queen
Captain Lance is out for blood on Arrow!
Things heated up in Starling City when the leader of the city’s police department was tipped off – by Ra’s al Ghul (Matt Nable) of all people – that Oliver Queen (Stephen Amell) was, in fact, the Arrow. Lance’s mission became clear: bring justice to the city by putting Oliver behind bars at any cost. He was close to accomplishing his goal too, if only Roy Harper (Colton Haynes) hadn’t made his surprise Arrowdeclaration. So where does Lance go from here?
Arrow co-star Paul Blackthorne jumped on the phone with ETonline ahead of tonight’s all-new episode to give us the scoop on Lance’s unflinching mission to bring Oliver down and whether the two men can ever repair their relationship (short answer: don’t count on it).
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Oliver is in quite the pickle. Now that Captain Lance knows Oliver is the Arrow, how much worse are things going to get between the two former allies?
Paul Blackthorne: Lance knows that Oliver Queen is the Arrow and yet at the end of the last episode, Roy Harper is putting himself forward as the Arrow. Now, Lance and Roy Harper go back a long way. He’s known Harper since he was a young kid in the Glades doing all the wrong things. He’s tried to help him before – when he showed Harper one of the Arrow corpses back in season one when they were glorifying the Arrow. Here is Harper now seemingly taking the fall for the Arrow, for Oliver Queen, which just breaks Lance’s heart that Harper should be set up for this. And it just drives Lance even harder down the warpath in pursuing Oliver Queen – to prove that he is in fact the Arrow.
Lance can’t be buying into the Roy stunt, so what does he have to do to bring the spotlight back onto Oliver?
Blackthorne: Lance is going to everything he can to prove Oliver Queen is the Arrow. That means finding evidence, that means pursuing him hard and fast – that’s what we’ll see in the next episode, Lance’s relentless pursuit of Oliver Queen to prove he is the Arrow and to disprove the idea that Roy Harper is to make that point.
Could Lance be holding out a small glimmer of hope that things with Oliver could go back to the way they were before, or is it a lost cause in his mind?
Blackthorne: Who knows! One thing about these Arrow writers is they come up with some pretty amazing storylines that twist and turn, and zig and zag, and secrets go on cultivate between these characters. Anything can happen. Time heals, for sure. But there’s a lot to get to – there’s a lot of water under the bridge here. There’s the world that Oliver Queen started with the masks and this whole crazy community that has existed in recent years, and then of course the Arrow is seemingly running around murdering people with the arrows again and seemingly setting Roy Harper up to take the fall. There are a lot of issues, but who knows. You never know what’s around the corner in Starling City. For now, there are major obstacles.
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Considering all the lies and secrets that have come out since, are you hoping they reconcile their relationship? It took a long time for Lance and the Arrow to reach a point where they worked well together as a “team.”
Blackthorne: They certainly have worked together as a team when Lance was doing all he could to help Team Arrow, but clearly there’s been a souring with everything that’s gone on with Sara’s death and people getting murdered. It’ll take some time to resolve their relationship.
Does it matter that Starling City as a whole is now aware of Oliver’s superhero identity? How does that affect the way Lance and SCPD operate moving forward?
Blackthorne: Public sentiment isn’t really too high on Lance’s mind at the moment. Whether the public wants it or not, he’s got a point to prove and the guy who’s betrayed him and seemingly murdering people is Oliver Queen. That’s all he cares about; he has tunnel vision on that.
Things also aren’t so good between Lance and Laurel, who’s been training heavily with Nyssa, at the moment. What can we expect from Lance and Laurel?
Blackthorne: It’s tragic for Lance. He’s lost one daughter running around in a mask and leather outfit, now here he is with another daughter doing exactly the same thing. [Laurel] was the one who grew up as a bookworm and Sara was the adventurer and the fighter, so it makes no sense [to Lance] whatsoever that Laurel is pursuing this line. It breaks Lance’s heart that he could lose another daughter in such away. That’s one of the reasons he’s so upset with her too. He thinks she’s a fish out of water and she has no business in this world, and he’s going to do everything in his power to stop her from doing that but she’s a hard-headed woman. She’s got a strong will. She’s doing it whether he likes it or not.
One of your fellow co-stars John Barrowman recently hinted that “jaws will drop” at the end of the season. Anything you can tease about the finale?
Blackthorne: The end of the season three finale, what we’ll see is the Starling City landscape will never be the same again. You won’t see it coming.. The landscape will be forever changed.
Arrow airs Wednesdays at 8 p.m. on The CW.
Are you hoping Oliver and Lance reconcile? Tell us your thoughts by tweeting Philiana Ng at @insidethetube on Twitter!
Recently, the Arrow stars debated the pros and cons of Oliver vs. Ray! Watch the ET interview below.