How did Oliver get the Bratva tattoo? How does he know how to speak Russian? Is he still a member of the Russian mafia? All of these questions will be answered in Arrow Season 5 when Oliver goes to Russia in the last sequence of flashbacks.
At Wizard World in Philadelphia (via ComicBook.com), an attendee specifically asked if Stephen Amell if young Oliver is on his way to Russia and if we can expect to get a good look at Oliver’s mysterious past with the Bratva. Amell didn’t give more than a simple ‘yes’ in terms of spoilers, but he did say he has a meeting in the coming week where he’ll learn more about what’s in store for the flashbacks.
"Typically by now, I would have gone to the writers' room and we would have had long, lengthy discussions about the upcoming season, but I wrapped Arrow, I had a really nice end-of-season dinner with Greg Berlanti, which is what we always do. We chatted about the good, the bad, the ugly, what's coming, what's happened, et cetera, et cetera. But we had that, and I literally haven't been home since the beginning of May.”
Amell also reiterated fans can expect Arrow to get back to a vibe similar to seasons one and two. The next big bad is going to ease this transition, Amell explains, because he/she has ties all the way back to Season 1. The upcoming ‘Russia stuff’ (as Amell called it) was introduced in the first season when Oliver calls his contacts in the Russian Mafia to help him take down Deadshot in his early days as Star City vigilante. The story arc goes deeper in Season 2 when we learn Oliver saved Bratva leader Anatoli Knyazev’s life during his time on Lian Yu. However, Ollie’s connection with Bratva becomes unclear after his friend and fellow member, Alexi Leonov, is killed. We don’t know if Oliver is still an official Captain, or anything about Knyazev’s whereabouts since the time he helped Team Arrow break Lyla out of a Russian prison at the end of Season 2.
“Our villain is going to in a lot of ways be a call back to season 1 and that’s something that you can do when you’re in season 5 and i think that the villain we have coming in is really going to ground the show and take us back to some of the elements that we had in the earlier days before we introduced so many fantastical elements to the Arrowverse.”
We also know Season 5’s villain will be superpowerless. Interestingly enough. Knayazev has a villainous alter ego, KGBeast. Coincidence, or not? Amell also recently revealed with Season 5 will come a new vigilante from the DC canon. Any guesses? Let us know in the comments below!
