Arrow: Five Predictions For the Rest of the Season

With the brain-splintering midseason finale of Arrow in the rear-view mirror, tonight will be the first of five consecutive weeks without a new episode, before 2015 picks up in earnest on January 21.

As such, it seemed as good a time as any to take stock in what's happened so far (more on that later) and look at ahead to the second half of the season in the hopes of figuring out just what it is that's coming.

There are going be both real and possible spoilers in this article, so...beware of that. And, yeah, since this is supposed to be predictions, we won't touch on things we know to be coming, like already-announced casting notices, the return of Slade Wilson and the like.

Oliver is obviously not really dead...

I mean, he's the show's title lead and we never saw the body land. When we do see him, in a teaser trailer for the rest of the season, there's someone standing in the snow next to Oliver's body.

So...who is that person? What are they doing? We're guessing there's a Lazarus Pit involved.

...but he will be for a little while.

We're guessing we won't see Oliver right away -- or if we do, it will only be in the flashbacks.

For how long? Who knows. For the last week or more, all the photos we've seen from the set on social media and the like have been with Oliver in his Island Oliver wig.

The first three episodes back will be the "Black Canary trilogy," showing how Laurel comes to be Black Canary. We've long assumed that at least one flashback in those episodes would deal with Sara Lance -- and given the events of the midseason finale, it wouldn't be surprising for one to deal with Maseo. Speaking of which...

A League of Assassins member will be responsible for saving him

Who wants to bet that the person who saves Oliver will be either Malcolm Merlyn or Maseo?

Outside chances go to Nyssa, if she believes Oliver wasn't forthcoming about Sara's killer...or Sara, if she's already made a visit to the Lazarus Pit. That, or we could see somebody else like Thea.

That's one of those things: everybody in this show has a motivation and everyone seems to have a master plan. And really, who wouldn't want Ra's dead?

Waller's new Squad

...maybe they could call themselves The Outsiders?

There's been a lot of talk about using the Suicide Squad at some point this season, but with a feature film ready to start shooting soon, it's hard to know just how seriously we should take that talk.

Still, Waller has to have something planned for the back half of the season, right? And in the flashbacks, she's a villain. Meanwhile, back during Comic Con, David Ramsey told reporters that Diggle and Lyla would be running A.R.G.U.S. at some point this year.

What if we see the Squad effectively terminated at the new A.R.G.U.S., while Waller has her own team that's essentially the same idea, but with a different name that isn't tied up with the movies? And maybe a little more dangerous? Use Boomerang, Slade Wilson, Vertigo et. al.?

Identity politics

It's likely that when Oliver comes back into play, we'll see them play with the ideas of identity that have driven so much of this season. Who is Oliver Queen, who is the Arrow? Can Oliver Queen even exist when the Arrow is so needed?

They've been playing that up through the lens of #olicity all year, but there will likely be more to it than that, too, with Palmer having taken over Oliver's company as well as his girlfriend.