MAJOR SPOILER ALERT: Dr Who and Torchwood’s Captain Jack Harkness actor John Barrowman was recently promoted to a series regular for the third season of The CW’s Arrow. Now Barrowman is opening up what Malcolm Merlin has planned for Ollie and Team in Season 3. Barrowman also spoke about how he had to keep the show from becoming Star Wars.
John Barrowman is back as a series regular Arrow. When we last saw the Dark Archer he playing the hero to help his daughter Thea out. However, do not expect a kinder gentler Malcolm Merlin in Season 3. Barrowman recently spoke to Entertainment Weekly about the tricks up his sleeve:
“Malcolm in the past has always been able to manipulate people and control them physically and with money and everything else, and when he lost Tommy, he couldn’t control Tommy because Tommy used his emotion. Tommy became a hero because he was emotionally connected to something. What I’m doing at the moment is trying to get in with Thea while she’s emotionally down, so I can control her, manipulate her. Malcolm has to learn how to control people emotionally and physically if he’s going to not lose the people around him, but also if he’s going to build the world around him that he needs in order to succeed.”
Thea was not the first choice for Malcolm's daughter. Barrowman also spoke about the son he never had :
“We had lunch with [executive producer] Andrew Kreisberg. It was season 1, we were talking about the future of Malcolm Merlyn, it was myself and my partner who said, ‘Why don’t you make Thea my daughter?’ They wanted Oliver to be my son, and I said, ‘No, it’s too Star Wars.’ It’s, ‘Oliver, I’m your father.’ But if you do Thea then it creates a whole new can of worms because Oliver will have a very difficult time killing Malcolm because he knows what it’s like to lose a father and won’t want to kill his sister’s father. And also it meant I was guaranteed a job for a long time. Yay!”
Where Barrowman was successful in stopping the show from becoming Star Wars, a fan turned one of the show’s epic battles into a lightsaber battle. Check out Arrow Jedi.
