‘Arrow’ Season 5 Spoilers: EP Teases Russian Flashbacks For Oliver

“Arrow” Season 5 is going to reveal more of Oliver Queen’s past. Star City’s superhero has some connections to Russia, but fans don’t know much about them. Beyond being aware he has a Russian tattoo and speaks the language when necessary, nobody knows how deep those connections are. However, executive producer Wendy Mericle said viewers will likely get the answers to the questions they’ve been asking via flashbacks.

“It’s a very good possibility that we'll finally find out how he got that Bratva tattoo and how he learned to speak Russian,” Mericle told TVLine.

Of course, Mericle didn’t divulge too many details about the Green Arrow’s (Stephen Amell) past, but she did say they would connect more to the beginning of the CW drama.

“When Oliver says, ‘No one can know my secret’ and he kills that guy in the pilot, we’re going to get some insight into that,” she said.

While it’s exciting to delve into something that audiences have been wondering about, not everybody is pumped about more flashbacks. The series, which has employed two timelines throughout its run, didn’t exactly thrill viewers with scenes of Oliver’s past this year. However, its producers have promised they’re working on making the past storyline more exciting.

“The problem is that we are telling a five-year story in the flashbacks of Oliver becoming the guy you met in the pilot,” executive producer Marc Guggenheim told TVLine in April. “So the deeper you get into the flashbacks, the closer he becomes to being that guy, and, thus, you lose that element of the flashbacks that was so interesting, which is how different he was ... That’s something we have struggled with this year.”

The scenes of Oliver’s past have been telling a story for each year he was missing. He was gone for five years, so it’s possible the series will be able to stop using them after Season 5, when the flashbacks will likely catch up to the beginning of the pilot. Connecting the storyline to the very beginning of the show might help take it back to basics. Amell has said he also hopes Season 5 captures some of the simplicity of “Arrow” Season 1.

“We need to get back to focusing more on some of the core elements that used to define ‘Arrow,’” Amell told Entertainment Weekly. “To me, that’s hand-to-hand combat, no superpowers, and dealing with the job of cleaning up Star City.”

“Arrow” Season 5 will premiere on the CW in the fall.