“Arrow’s” Malcolm Merlyn (John Barrowman) isn’t a man who is known for his moral compass, but in the Oct. 21 episode of The CW drama, we’ll see the new Ra’s al Ghul faced with an ethical quandary when Laurel Lance (Katie Cassidy) and his daughter Thea (Willa Holland) arrive at Nanda Parbat with the body of Sara Lance (Caity Lotz) and a harebrained scheme to resurrect the long-dead vigilante. But as Thea’s own dip in the Lazarus Pit has proved, messing with the laws of nature always comes with a cost.
How has Malcolm taken to leadership of the League; is it all he dreamed of, or a case of be careful what you wish for?
Barrowman: It’s a combination of both, because our return to Nanda is through the eyes and the storyline of Thea and Laurel, and so we pick up however many months later… they come to him with a reason. We all assume that the League now is his, he is in control of that, and you’ll see in the episode how they are loyal to him. But the reason the girls have come back is to resurrect Sara, and Malcolm’s in a dilemma, because there his daughter is in front of him, and he was prepared to let her go and die because he knows the effect the Pit has on someone who’s brought back. So he’s reluctant to do it for Laurel, and there’s no love lost between him and Laurel, because she’s coming to ask for this favor and in the last season she turned to him during a big battle and said, in so many words, “thank you for saving my life, I wouldn’t do the same for you.” So it’s like, “girl, you’re coming into my house – what do you want me to do?” It’s very interesting, because you will see Malcolm being, in one way, ethical and moral with Laurel, and the audience is gonna go, “oh my God, Malcolm’s preaching here,” and then he has something that happens to his daughter in the episode, and he sees the change, and he does something that is totally the opposite of the morals and ethics he’s just preached to Laurel .So it’s the complexity of Malcolm and the reasoning behind why he does what he does – that’s what I love about him.