Colton Haynes Returns To Arrow In New Photo

In the illustrious history of Arrow, it could be argued that the most popular hero to fight alongside Oliver Queen was that of Roy Harper, played by fan favorite actor Colton Haynes. Originally introduced in the back half of season 1, we saw this young man organically develop and eventually blossom into the vigilante known as Arsenal, with one badass costume to boot.

But, as fate would have it, Haynes was contracted for but a few seasons, and an exit was plotted for him late in season 3. As you may recall, Roy publicly took the fall for Oliver by saying that he was the original Arrow before faking his own death. In the time since, we’ve seen him come back for a guest shot, but he’s remained in the hearts and minds of Arrowverse junkies everywhere. That’s why we were so happy to learn last month that Haynes will be reprising his role for a multi-episode arc sometime after the series returns from its winter hiatus.

What he’ll be up to and when exactly we’ll see him is still unknown, but to tease fans with what’s to come, the actor took to Instagram this week to post the below photo, which was accompanied with the caption: Friday’s night shoot with my #Arrow fam…guess who’s back…back again.

Back when the news about Haynes returning for more was made official, executive producers Marc Guggenheim and Wendy Mericle shared the following:

“We’re thrilled to announce that Colton Haynes will be reprising his role as Roy Harper for a short arc on Arrow this year. Roy is called back to Star City to help resolve an urgent matter with high stakes for the team. His short visit turns into something surprising when he reunites with Thea and sparks a change in both of their lives that will have long-lasting consequences…”

So again, we still don’t know the specifics of what he’ll be involved in (though speculation is running rampant on the web), as the team is keeping things a bit vague, but just knowing that we’ll get to see more of Roy Harper is enough to have us excited. In fact, a few clues have pointed to us seeing the character back on our screens as soon as episode 13, but that’s yet to be confirmed.

For now, we’ll continue to wait patiently to see what The CW has planned for Haynes and keep counting down the days until Arrow returns with new episodes on January 18th.