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In the '80s, you could barely go a week without encountering a "Very Special Episode" of your favorite network sitcom or drama series. These days, most TV scribes leave the social commentary to late night hosts like Samantha Bee and John Oliver.
Arrowexecutive producer Marc Guggenheim is aiming to change that this week's installment, titled "Spectre of the Gun."
The sobering hour featured a gunman attacking City Hall, sparking a debate on gun control that exemplified the complex nature of the issue, with every member of Team Arrow offering a different perspective.
"I grew up on St. Elsewhereand Picket Fencesand L.A. Law. I grew up in a time where it was commonplace -- like literally every week -- for a one-hour drama to tackle the issues of the day," Guggenheim told reporters at a preview screening of the episode earlier this week. "Somewhere along the line we got away from that, the whole industry got away from that. And now you have Black-ishand Carmichael Show, but as far as network dramas are concerned, [they're] really not tackling current events, current issues."
Since Arrowis now in its fifth season, Guggenheim pointed out, "we've hopefully earned the freedom to, in 23 episodes of television ... have 22 pieces of candy and one episode of vegetables. We felt that gun violence felt like the right topic, A: because of its topicality, but also because of the level of gun violence that is on Arrow."
SEE ALSO:Will that 'Arrow' death bring Oliver and Felicity closer together?Considering that the show's titular vigilante has often used lethal force -- and struggled with the morality of that choice -- it's telling that the hour ended not with the Green Arrow taking out an unrepentant killer, but Mayor Queen talking down a disturbed individual who was let down by the system, without using violence.
"There was an opportunity to do an episode where he wasn't going to get in the Green Arrow costume," said executive producer Wendy Mericle. "From a story perspective, it was really the challenge of figuring out what would an episode look like where we had to solve the problem of the week with Oliver Queen as mayor, as opposed to him gearing up as the Green Arrow?"
More than landing on any particular side of the issue, Mericle added, "You want to start a conversation. It's what Curtis (Echo Kellum) says in the episode: it's important to at least talk about this. At some point we did get away from that, I think, as a country, and we like the idea of hearing both sides and hearing both sides as fairly as possible."
The gun regulations that Oliver and Star City's politicians enacted at the end of the episode were left "intentionally vague," said Guggenheim, so as to remain as neutral as possible.
"My first gig in the business was on a show called The Practicewhich was a David Kelly show. David always said, 'I’m not interested in the verdict. I’m just interested in both sides in the case having equal arguments.'
"Very intentionally, we didn’t want to provide the answer to the audience to the problem of gun violence. We wanted to leave that open to the audience as almost like a Rorschach test. One of the goals obviously was to be -- I’m sorry this phrase has been corrupted -- as fair and balanced to the issue as possible. Once you put a fine point on, 'Okay, this is what the regulations should be,' then you end up taking a side."
He added, "I'd like to err on the side of 'just because there's gun legislation does not mean the Second Amendment is being infringed.' There's a way to have the Second Amendment and still have some reasonable limitations on gun ownership ... There's things we should all be able to get together on and the idea is that these regulations, in a general way, represent that. There's got to be a few things that we can all agree on -- gun owners and gun control advocates alike. "
Gun control remains a hot-button issue, and Guggenheim admits that -- completely accidentally -- he ended up writing the first half of the episode's script before November 7, and the second half after Donald Trump won the election.
"As you watch the episode -- I write chronologically and linearly -- and I think you can see that, in the second half, it's about guns and gun violence, but it's also about the state of discourse in our country," Guggenheim admitted. "I’m an unapologetic progressive, but the thing that I’ve noticed is that not talking about issues serves a conservative agenda, not a liberal agenda. I do agree with Curtis, that I think the country is where it is right now because we stopped talking to each other."
SEE ALSO:'Arrow' star David Ramsey says Diggle is a changed man post-prisonOliver has had to examine his own violent tendencies in the past, but Guggenheim previewed that the show intends to put a microscope on that aspect of his personality in the back half of Season 5, and this episode serves as a building block for that self-reflection.
"We’re really delving into the complexities of Oliver being a killer in a way that we’ve never done on the show before. In the past, it was like 'I’m a killer or I’m not a killer.' It was very binary. This year, it’s super gray, and it’s really messy, and this is a component of it," he said.
"In many ways, Oliver killing is the seminal moral quandary of the show. That was something I think that spoke to us as writers and spoke to the audience back in Season 1. Like 'this guy kills people.' One of the things we are doing in the back half of Season 5 is really getting underneath that and what that means, not just in terms of morality but in terms of psychology -- specifically Oliver’s psychology. There’s things about Oliver’s killing that you have yet to learn."
Arrowairs Wednesdays at 8 p.m. on The CW.
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