In just a few short days, the beloved superhero series Arrow will wrap up Season 4 with the season finale Schism set to air on Wednesday, May 25. Each season, Oliver Queen (Stephen Amell) has had a new villain to contend with, with Olly getting set to confront this year’s primary villain Damien Darhk (Neal McDonough), as teased in the new photos released earlier this week. While we still don’t know for sure who the Season 4 villain will be, Stephen Amell dropped some tantalizing hints after The CW’s upfront presentation last week.
The show was already renewed back in March, along with the network’s other superhero programs The Flash and DC’s Legends of Tomorrow, although nothing has been revealed about the new season quite yet. Variety caught up with Stephen Amell following the upfront presentation, and while he wouldn’t reveal exactly who the “big bad” will be this season, he did drop one big hint. Here’s what he had to say below.
“I’ve heard that our big bad, our villain, is something that you can really only do once you’re in the fifth, sixth or seventh season of a TV show. As far as I know, they don’t have superpowers. I’ll tell you that.”
Since he mentioned “they” in regards to the villain, it’s possible that he’s referring to multiple villains or a group of baddies, although he failed to elaborate any further. The actor did add that, as far as he knew, The CW isn’t developing any new superhero shows for the upcoming season, but there will be a new hero thrown into the mix. After months of speculation, it was confirmed last week that CBS’ Supergirl will move to The CW for its second season. Since Arrow, The Flash and DC’s Legends of Tomorrow are often crossing over with one another, the actor teased that fans can expect crossovers with Supergirl, only this time around, they don’t have to set up the character, since she’s already been established in her first season on CBS.
“Supergirl is coming, but we don’t have to introduce a new show next year. In Season 2, it was the introduction of The Flash and crossovers there, and last year there was a lot with Legends of Tomorrow, and we don’t have to do that this year because Supergirl is already established. So I would like to focus on a lot of the stuff that I think Arrow does very well.”
The network already announced that there will be an epic crossover with all four shows at some point in the new fall season, but no details have been announced thus far. Supergirl has already crossed over with The Flash in a March episode on CBS that featured Grant Gustin as a guest star, but we’ll have to wait and see how Kara Zor-El will be introduced to Oliver Queen and the rest of The CW’s superhero lineup. Here’s what the actor had to say about their approach to these crossovers.
“I’m always interested and it’s always great for fans. I just have to make sure that they balance keeping up the quality of your show – last year when they wanted me to come to Legends and play old Oliver, I was like, ‘That would be awesome, but show me how this works in our schedule so it’s not comprising whatever episode we’re working on.’ And it was great and we did it. So I would just like to see a plan.”
DC’s Legends of Tomorrow aired their season finale on Thursday, with The Flash and Arrow season finales airing this week. The Legends of Tomorrow finale introduced a new hero, Hourman (Patrick J. Adams), who will be returning in Season 2, but we’re not sure if he will cross over into the other shows or not. We’ll have to wait and see how these finales will lead into the new seasons of all these superhero shows, so stay tuned for more details.