Arrow Season 8: Two major characters return, what role could they have?

Two major characters will make their returns in season 8 of Arrow. What role could they end up having in the show’s final season?

I wouldn’t say I’ve had a love/hate relationship with Arrow, but the show hit some low points that made me lose interest in various storylines. But it feels like things are back on an upswing, especially now that we know the upcoming season is the final one.

With a shorter run of episodes, they’ll have a tighter timeline to work with. Thanks to Entertainment Weekly, we now know to expect two familiar faces to return. Colin Donnell will return as Tommy Merlin and Josh Segarra will return as Adrian Chase (or Prometheus, if you prefer).

While I’m way more fond of Tommy’s return, it’ll be interesting to see what role the characters will have in a shortened season. You can’t really have Chase just return and be the big bad the entire time because that’s something they’ve already done. They need to do something new with him.

Could we see more flashbacks? They started moving away from that in season 7 and went with a future storyline instead, which is the same principle, just building up to something instead of looking back on it.

I could see Tommy being a helping hand in some way. Even when Oliver saw him previously, he wasn’t really there, but the memory of Tommy kept him going. I don’t think they’ll necessarily bring back the dead. However, the multiverse has brought back familiar faces in this show before, which seems likely given what Beth Schwartz told EW.

"“Adrian Chase comes back in a different way than expected,” showrunner/executive producer Beth Schwartz tells EW. “We’re really excited about that because obviously he’s one of our favorite villains.” Meanwhile, Donnell is “not coming back as the Tommy we know,” teases executive producer Marc Guggenheim."

Those statements make me excited to see what’s in store for fans in Arrow‘s final season. Without those two characters, there’s still a lot of story to tell. When you throw them back in the mix, though, there’s an element of surprise that lingers even more.

Arrow season 8 returns to The CW on October 15 and 9pm EST.