'Arrow' 100: EP Marc Guggenheim On The Diggle Twist & Those Callbacks To Earlier Episodes

There was a sweet nod to actor Colin’s role on NBC’s “Chicago Med” in a sequence between Thea and Malcolm Merlyn (James Barrowman), where the proud father talked about his son being a doctor in Chicago. (Colin stars as Dr. Connor Rhodes on the Dick Wolf series, which airs Thursdays on NBC.)

And, Guggenheim said Colin got a sneak peek of the scene.

“Yeah, I sent him a clip of it, and he wrote me back immediately. He was tickled,” the producer said.

In the original “Arrow” pilot, Oliver gave his sister a Hōzen he’d brought back from the island. In Wednesday’s 100th episode, Thea gave it to Ollie as a wedding gift. Asked about the selection process for adding in callbacks like that, Guggenheim said it was an easy one.

“I can’t speak for Wendy [Mericle], but when I was writing my portions of the script, I didn’t go into it with a laundry list of items I wanted to check off. For better or for worse, part of the advantage of having been so intimately involved with the show since the beginning is all these little nods are sort of little things that are just already in my memory. Even like turns of phrase, like Robert saying, ‘That’s not going to finish well.’ Oh, I know he says that so I can work that in. The Hōzen, the beginning [of the 100th episode] where Oliver’s running and we reveal the mansion – none of these things were sort of in the original break, it was just things I sort of found in the writing. … The  only challenge was to avoid the temptation to do it every single scene.”

Guggenheim said what ended up in the episode came down to balance.

“It’s something you feel in the writing and in some cases, it starts with just thinking like, ‘Well, how does the scene start?’ I know what the scene’s about from the break, but how does the scene start, what’s the downbeat on the scene,” he said. “For example, like Thea giving Oliver a gift in advance of his wedding, that seemed like just an appropriate downbeat, and from there the idea comes. ‘Well, she could give him a Hōzen,’ and then you get a little connection. My process is very instinctual.”

Fight Coordinator James Bamford, who has directed several episodes of “Arrow,” and appeared in the pilot, directed the “Arrow” 100th.

“We had Bam direct it because he was quite simply the best man for the job. He was the guy,” Guggenheim said. “I love his visual style, I love the performances he gets out of the actors. He finds a way to convey scope and production value in a way that pushes the envelope of the show. I’m an enormous fan of his work and he’s never let us down.”

The final installment in The CW’s DC Crossover week —  “DC’s Legends of Tomorrow” — airs Thursday at 8/7c.