SPOILER ALERT: Warning, this article contains minor spoilers for Arrow Season 7. Proceed at your own risk.
At San Diego Comic-Con, the Arrow cast previewed the events of the show’s seventh season. Season 6 ended with Oliver Queen‘s (Stephen Amell) shocking confession that he is the Green Arrow. He was then imprisoned in Slabside Maximum Security Prison — putting him face to face with many of the criminals he helped put there.
Oliver is set to face a number of new challenges. Season 7 will see him “vulnerable in a way unlike ever before when a mysterious new enemy begins to unravel his work as Green Arrow, challenging him to redeem his name or risk losing everything.” The trailer shown at Comic-Con depicted Oliver trying to keep his head down and stay out of trouble while in prison. It also hinted at a mysterious new figure taking up the Arrow mantle.
Repercussions and Redemption
“The coolest thing about what’s happening with Oliver in the premiere is that there’s nothing about him that’s heroic at all. And that’s been really fun,” says Amell, who has played the character for the past seven seasons. He says the character’s actions in the premiere episode are especially “reprehensible.”
“Maybe what he did in the finale was stupid,” Amell says of Oliver’s big reveal. This is especially true since everyone else is dealing with the ramifications of Oliver’s announcement. Curtis (Echo Kellum), Rene (Rick Gonzalez), and Dinah (Juliana Harkavy) are still trying to protect the city, while also avoiding the ban placed on vigilantes. Dinah is the only one who can take on the bad guys legally. But she must carefully balance her dual roles.
Many of the actors spoke about the duality of their characters, especially as fathers and superheroes. “Oliver is at his best when he is a dad,” Amell said. Rick Gonzalez also spoke about his character’s need for redemption this season in taking up Oliver’s mantle and juggling his role as a father.
Taking Charge
“Felicity is tired of watching her back, and she’s going to take some action,” Emily Bett Rickards teases of her new role this season with Oliver out of the picture. Diggle (David Ramsey) and Felicity will be brought together by Oliver’s absence but will also go about taking on Diaz (Kirk Acevedo) in their own way. It will be interesting to see how Team Arrow functions and changes with Oliver gone. They’ve had five months to think about the predicament he left them in.
Arrow Season 7 premieres Monday, October 18, 2018, at 8 p.m. on the CW.
