Based on what the producers have been telling us for the past few months, Arrow‘s eighth and final season will essentially replay the greatest hits of the series by revisiting its earlier years. Right now, we can only fathom what this means, though we can’t rule out the possibilities of time travel and/or journeying to alternate universes.
As such, a handful of fan favorites have already been confirmed for another tour of duty this fall, as  Josh Segarra and Colin Donnell will return as Adrian Chase and Tommy Merlyn, respectively, and Rila Fukushima will slip back into the role of Katana shortly thereafter. And if that weren’t enough, they’ll be joined by John Barrowman (Malcolm Merlyn) and Susanna Thompson (Moira Queen), with the highly demanded return of Willa Holland as Thea Queen rounding things out.
If you’ve been keeping up with news pertaining to the series, then you probably read something a few weeks back about Byron Mann coming back as Yao Fei, the man who mentored Oliver Queen during his first year spent on Lian Yu. Well, according to Canadagraphs, he’s been spotted on set during filming for episode 8×07, “Purgatory.”
Considering how there’s already been an episode titled “Lian Yu,” it makes sense for the producers to go with its English translation, “Purgatory,” for the titling of this revisitation. If anything, this’ll only further fuel speculation as to how Ollie is going about all these throwbacks, especially with this one occurring so late in the season. All that’s known at present time is that Mann, Stephen Amell and Katie Cassidy Rodgers were each spotted entering the closed location.
Like I hinted at earlier, Yao Fei can be credited with shaping Oliver Queen into the Green Arrow we know him to be today. After all, he showed him the ropes as an archer and Oliver even wore his hood for the first three seasons of the show in order to pay him proper respect. It’s only fitting then that he be there before the Crisis comes.
Arrow returns with new episodes on Tuesday, October 15th on The CW.
