The producers revealed Roy actually was originally in the episode, with Kreisberg explaining, “There was an amazing sequence in here that we actually had that unfortunately we just had to cut for time because this episode was just so jam-packed. But we actually had Oliver tell Roy, ‘I want you to go down to the hospital and keep an eye on Laurel.' When Nyssa and her goon kidnap Mrs. Lance, Roy actually confronts them. Nyssa shoots him with a dart with snake venom and says, ‘A normal person would be dead by now. You're stronger than you look,’ and he says, ‘I get that a lot.’ Then they have a fight, but the venom starts to affect him, and she takes him out. It's a great sequence, and they're great in it, but it wasn't propelling the story forward. It was just a really neat moment. But yes, the next five episodes -- in addition to everything else that's going on -- it really charts Oliver's attempts to keep Roy on the straight and narrow.”