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Arrow planned on revealing that Malcolm Merlyn was Oliver Queen’s real father (until John Barrowman’s husband talked them out of it)
Arrow planned on revealing that Malcolm Merlyn was Oliver Queen’s real father, but John Barrowman's husband had a better idea
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Arrow was known for its twists and turns. While the CW superhero drama was a dark action show, it also had elements of a soap opera. There were surprise family revelations, deaths, resurrections, and secret long-lost siblings.
It turns out that one of the biggest plot threads was left on the cutting room floor. During the early seasons of the show, the writers toyed with the idea of revealing that Malcolm Merlyn (John Barrowman) was Oliver Queen’s (Stephen Amell) real father.
“In the initial thing, they took me out to a lunch, and they sat me down at the lunch, and they said, ‘We want to make Malcom Oliver’s dad.’ And I’m eating my salad, and my husband Scott is with me. And I went, ‘Yeah, but that’s awful. It’s Darth Vader Star Wars kind of predictable,’” John Barrowman says during a panel at Dragon Con.
Barrowman’s husband, Scott Gill, pitched an alternate suggestion, which wound up making it to the series.
“My husband, eating his Caesar salad, went, ‘Why don’t you make him Thea’s father?’ The writers and producers all went, ‘That’s a great idea. That’s a really good idea.’ And that’s how it happened. My husband introduced the idea. And after we finished the lunch, he looked at me and said, ‘You do realize I’ve secured your job for a while.’ And I said, ‘I know because Oliver won’t be able to kill me because I’m his sister’s father.’ That’s a very good husband.”
And thus, Arrow season two revealed that Malcolm was Thea’s biological father. This complicated Oliver’s rivalry with Malcolm and gave Thea an identity crisis. As a thank you to Scott Gill, the doctor who delivered Thea Queen was named Gill.
None of this stopped the writers from killing Malcolm off in season five, but Scott’s pitch definitely bought the character some time.
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