When Oliver Queen outted himself as the Green Arrow in Arrow’s season 6 finale, he wasn’t the only one affected. With Oliver’s associations to Felicity, Diggle, Curtis, Dinah, and Rene out there, Team Arrow has to be even more careful. With being a vigilante being outlawed, the characters are going to struggle to find their footing with their leader behind bars and keeping Star City safe.
“There’s a lot of decisions that have to be made, especially with Oliver being in prison,” Rick Gonzalez told us during a roundtable interview at San Diego Comic-Con. “Telling us to keep fighting. But how do we do that? How do we interpret that? Right away you’re going to see what fighting back means, for each character.”
The heart of any show is the relationships that define it. And while a portion of the fanbase has had some problems with Rene’s character, myself included, it’s definitely Rene’s relationship with his daughter Zoe that serves to ground the character and make you want to root for him.
So don’t expect any romance for Rene in season 7, as Rene’s focus is, and will continue to be, his daughter.
“I think the love of Rene’s life is Zoe,” he said. “For him, being a dad. For me, it’s more interesting for me to see him try to become a complete dad, in his own way, than to find a love interest. If that happens, that’s fine…But he loves his daughter. I think he’s more focused on that.”
Gonzalez also talked about Rene striving for redemption, and how everything comes back to him being a father to Zoe, as far as motivation goes.
“Redemption is no stranger to him, and for me that’s totally fine,” he said. “I like the idea of him always striving to be a better dad or be the complete dad for Zoe. When I see more of that in him, it makes the action in him, it makes the energy in him, the darkness in him that much more interesting and fun to play.”
Watch our interview with Gonzalez below, where he previews an interesting reveal in the season premiere.
Arrow season 7 premieres Monday, Oct. 15 at 8/7c on The CW.