ARROW Finally Reveals Prometheus’ Identity in Shocking Plot Twist

The biggest mystery on Arrow this season is the identity of the big bad, Prometheus. We’ve known that Prometheus is connected to someone killed by Oliver Queen when he was the Hood back in season one. The show later suggested that he is the son of Justin Claybourne, who was taken out by the Hood four years ago, while his mother refused to provide be of assistance. Fan theories have suggested Billy Malone (RIP), a resurrected Tommy Merlyn, and many other characters for the man behind the mask.

But in this week’s episode, where a lot of things were already going down, Prometheus finally unmasked himself in a truly stunning plot twist. I don’t think a lot of people could have predicted this.

[Warning: The Following Contains MAJOR SPOILERS From This Week’s Arrow.]

So, this week’s Arrow revealed that Prometheus is none other than Adrian Chase, the district attorney working with Mayor Queen. While he has served as an ally to Oliver (on the surface at least), he is secretly the son of a man killed by the Hood. He has been plotting his revenge since, implementing a lengthy plan to stay several steps ahead of Oliver.

But, I know what you’re thinking. Wasn’t Adrian supposed to be Vigilante? That was how it played out in the comics, but Arrow is adding its own unique twist to the story. Executive producer Wendy Mericle explained the reveal to a group of reporters, including THR. “One of the reasons we did do it was because everybody would be thinking, ‘Of course he’s going to be Vigilante.’ We thought it would be a really fun twist to do what we’ve always done on the show, which is to take the comic book mythology and turn it on its head and see what kind of story we can mine from a surprise like that. It was also something different for this season. We wanted to change up how we introduced the big bad and change up when we did it.”

Mericle then confirms that they have always planned for Adrian to be Prometheus, while the show will attempt to “humanize” the character and his motivations. As for how Prometheus is different from past big bads, she says, “We really wanted to build him up as someone who is extremely good at being 10 steps ahead of Oliver, really being psychological in the way that he manipulates him. One of the ways he does that is by going after the people that Oliver cares about. We’ve seen villains do that in the past, but this year, Adrian does it in a way that’s a little bit more specific. His goal is very clear: he really has no drive to kill Oliver. It’s purely based on torture. It’s all part and parcel of this drive to break Oliver down psychologically as opposed to physically, which we have seen Slade and Merlyn and everybody else do, take him on hand-to-hand. This is much more of a mental game.”