Oliver Queen has had a rough decade or so on Arrow. One of his most consistent qualities is the way he tends to blame himself for everything that goes wrong. And so much has gone wrong over the first five seasons that it can be hard to keep track of everything that has backfired on the hero. According to star Stephen Amell, one incident sticks out as something Oliver would give anything to undo. He explained Oliver's regret like this:
I think his biggest regret is probably not being able to save his mom. For sure, that's tough. We actually viewed that episode in Walla Walla. We did a random viewing party, and we set it up -- 'It'll be really fun! There's like 200 people there!' And the episode ends, and everyone stared at me like I had just tricked them into something.
The murder of Moira Queen goes down as one of the biggest tragedies of the first two seasons of Arrow, so it's no surprise that Stephen Amell considers Oliver's inability to protect her as Oliver's biggest regret. Slade Wilson really did everything he could to make Moira's death as horrible as possible. He kidnapped the Queen clan and tried to force a tied-up Oliver to choose between his mother and his sister. Moira volunteered herself so that Thea would survive, and both her kids had to watch Slade skewer her with a ginormous sword.
It was all kind of a bummer, and Susanna Thompson's performance in Moira's final scene alive was masterful. Stephen Amell's reveal at the recent Heroes & Villains Fan Fest (via ComicBook.com) that a crowd of Arrow fans wasn't exactly jubilant at the end of his viewing party makes sense, all things considered. I know I wasn't in an especially fun mood after I watched Moira's death the first time around.
Of course, Moira's death was way back in Season 2, and plenty of bad things have happened to Oliver since. He got himself into trouble in Season 4 when he bungled his relationship with Felicity. As it turns out, Stephen Amell has a pretty good reason for why his biggest regret doesn't involve her, saying this:
It probably is not Felicity, because he's had literal family members murdered in front of him.
Even the biggest Olicity shippers (and anti-shippers) probably can't blame Stephen Amell for not picking any of Oliver's foibles with Felicity as his biggest regret. I know I'd do just about anything to go back in time and erase the baby mama drama from Season 4, but the death of Moira in front of Oliver and Thea was worse. Slightly.
Luckily for those of us who have been missing Moira ever since she died in Season 2, Susanna Thompson will reprise her role for the Arrow leg of the big DC TV crossover. Deathstroke will be back as well, so we'll have to cross our fingers and hope that we won't have to watch Moira skewered again. You can catch her back on Arrow on Wednesday, November 30 at 8 p.m. ET.
