‘Arrow’ Bosses Reveal How Oliver Will Juggle Being Mayor And Fighting Off Season 5 Big Bad Prometheus

Oliver Queen has a lot on his plate during Season 5 of Arrow.

Not only did Oliver (Stephen Amell) alienate Team Arrow after he publicly killed Damien Darhk (Neal McDonough) in Season 4, but he’s also juggling his new duties as mayor of Star City.

How will Oliver deal with being mayor and talking crime without Diggle (David Ramsey) and Thea (Willa Holland) next season?

During an interview with Variety, executive producer Wendy Mericle discussed how Oliver would balance his mayoral duties and fighting crime.

Unfortunately, things aren’t going to be smooth sailing.

“He’s sort of not dealing with it all,” Mericle stated. “He went into it with very big ambitions, but we come to find in the premiere that those ambitions ran into reality and, for the time being, the most effective way he can help the city is by being the Green Arrow.”

How will Oliver handle life without Team Arrow?

“He’s still got Felicity in the bunker but Dig and Thea are gone, and Black Canary (Katie Cassidy) is unfortunately gone… But he’s out there fighting the good fight on his own. That’s quickly going to change, mostly because Felicity starts to turn him, but he also starts to think about the reality of what this life is like. It takes a toll on you physically and emotionally and Oliver starts to realize it isn’t something he can do on his own.”

When it comes to villains this season, fans can expect Arrow to return to its roots.

In fact, one of this season’s main villains, Tobias Church (Chad Coleman), is a gangster who Mericle promises will pay homage to some of the bad guys from Season 1.

Speaking of the show’s roots, this season will be the final year of Oliver’s flashbacks.

The first four years of flashbacks on Arrow centered on Oliver’s time on the island.

Season 5 will take fans to Russia and reveal everything Oliver went through with the Russian mafia, the Bratva.

According to IGN, exploring Oliver’s time in Russia will also introduce Dolph Lundgren as Kovar.

“That dude is a movie star,” Amell stated. “He brings gravitas to the flashbacks this year.”

Hopefully, fans will finally learn how Oliver got his Bratva tattoo and how he achieved the rank of captain within the organization.

Meanwhile, this season’s biggest villain is Prometheus, whom Amell thinks will grow into the show’s best villain to date.

“Prometheus is a villain that is a byproduct of Oliver Queen being Green Arrow… That’s something that you get to do once you’re five years into a show. In a lot of ways, I think the most success that we’ve had with a villain, in my mind, was with Manu Bennett as Deathstroke. One of the reasons is because we got to tell a really personal story. We got to tell the story, sort of the dueling time of their time on the island and then their time in the Starling City at the time.”

Amell continued, “Because Prometheus is a villain of Oliver’s creation, so to speak, I feel like it will bring in that personal element as well.”

According to Comic Book, the new season will also introduce a number of new characters to Oliver’s team.

Oliver will have to rely on this new crop of heroes until Diggle and Thea get back on his side, and there’s no telling when that will happen.

Thankfully, Oliver still has Felicity (Emily Bett Rickards), who should offer more than enough support as he takes down whatever Star City throws at him.

But when will Felicity finally come clean and tell Oliver about the new man in her life?

Fans can watch Oliver juggle his new responsibilities when new episodes of Arrow air Wednesday nights on The CW.

Check out a preview for the next all-new episode of Arrow below.

[Featured Image by The CW]