After Arrow Season 5, flashbacks won’t be a regular part of the story. Though that doesn’t mean they won’t live on in a different way. Producers Wendy Mericle and Marc Guggenheim want to see flashbacks from different characters like Mr. Terrific, or possibly even a villain. Flashforwards of Oliver and Diggle aren’t off the table either.
According to IGN, the producers did make a final decision that this season will be the end of Oliver’s personal backstory, which have been an integral part of the storyline since Season 1. However, the flashbacks will move on, they’ll just be “non-island flashbacks” and won’t tell a “serialized story,” according to Guggenheim.
"Next year, in Season 6, what we'll end up doing is we'll do some episodes without any sort of flashbacks. We've [also] established over the first four seasons of proof of concept that we can do flashback stories that don't involve what I call the island narrative, even when he's not on the island. We like when those non-island flashbacks sort of illuminate what's going on in the present day.”
Guggenheim also accepts partial blame for Season 4’s slow-moving, overly-dramatic plot. That’s why Season 5 is going all the way “back to basics,” as the cast says.
"This is my bad: I sort of felt going into Season 4 that that was tying our hands, that oh, we could only tell stories that tied up with the present days. So I told the writers in the beginning of Season 4, let's free ourselves of that burden, and it didn't work. People were only interested in the flashbacks if they did connect up with the present day,” Guggenheim said. “There's really no time for emotional development. It's got to be just adrenaline-fueled action, like danger... it's just got to be very visceral and not emotional. We're trying to write the flashbacks with that in mind."
Do you think flashbacks should continue in Season 6? Let us know what you think in the comments below!
Arrow Season 5 premieres Oct. 5.
