Arrow EP Teases Season 6, Confirms No More Flashbacks (For The Most Part)

Although we’ve got about four weeks to go until the season finale of Arrow hits airwaves, buzz surrounding said episode has reached critical mass. No doubt due to it being the culmination of the deadly game Prometheus has set in motion for the past year and because we’re seeing Deathstroke return in some capacity, all eyes will be on Oliver Queen come May 24.

But, like any geek who loves their superhero shows, we’re not afraid to speculate about season 6 and, from the looks of it, neither are the folks at ComicBook.com. You see, they recently had the chance to chat with executive producer Wendy Mericle, who had this to say about how the season 5 finale will pave the way for what’s to come:

“Oliver is moving toward forging a new legacy. He’s put this past and this burden from his family to rest and he’s moving forward to redefine that in season 6. It’s all new, and he’s got this wealth of experience and knowledge to draw from now, and a team to work with.”

Now, it’s what she said after that that’s even more interesting, including confirmation that flashbacks will no longer be utilized on a regular basis, unless, of course, they need something to service the narrative of a given episode:

“Moving into season 6, we’re not calling it a reboot because the show’s still called Arrow and it’s still about Oliver and his team, so that part’s not changing, but we aren’t going to have the flashbacks. It gives us a lot more real estate, a lot more space to hopefully bring in some cool villains and tell some cool character stories — and we have some new characters on the show whose backstories we really haven’t had an opportunity to experience. We saw a little bit of Wild Dog’s, we haven’t seen that much of Dinah’s. If we bring in anybody new or we’d love to have Ragman back at some point as well, we can use the flashback device to tell other people’s kind of islands, if you will. And that part is very exciting.”

Having already heard it’s very possible that not every member of Team Arrow may make it out of the finale alive, I think it’s safe to assume that Wild Dog and Dinah Drake won’t be heading into the great beyond anytime soon, specifically because they were recently confirmed as being series regulars for season 6. But whatever the new status quo may be, we’re all in.

Arrow airs on Monday nights on The CW.