Arrow: Another Character Confirmed to Appear in Green Arrow and the Canaries Backdoor Pilot

Arrow is nearly halfway done with its eighth and final season, but there’s a chance that some of the series’ characters could live on beyond the series finale. In addition to the four other series that are part of The CW‘s Arrowverse of shows, the network is currently developing a new potential spinoff, which would focus on the characters of Laurel Lance (Katie Cassidy), Dinah Drake (Juliana Harkavy), and Mia Smoak (Katherine McNamara). The spinoff, which is being dubbed Green Arrow and the Canaries, is set to have a backdoor pilot in the series’ penultimate episode. While details around the episode are largely a mystery, we now know another cast member who will be included. According to a new report from TVLine, the adult version of John “JJ” Diggle Jr./Deathstroke (Charlie Barnett) is expected to appear in the upcoming backdoor pilot.

This is an interesting development, considering the events of this week’s episode, “Present Tense”. The episode saw “Future Team Arrow” brought to the present day (seemingly by The Monitor), resulting in them coming face to face with the 2019 iteration of the team. The two groups then teamed up, after learning that the Grant Wilson version of Deathstroke was attempting to attack Star City. Grant was ultimately apprehended and imprisoned in Gotham City, which would have seemingly caused JJ to not be radicalized to lead the Deathstrokes in the future.

While JJ – and his relationship with his adopted brother Connor Hawke (Joseph David-Jones) – has factored into a few episodes of the season thus far, the notion that he’ll appear in the “Green Arrow and the Canaries” episode could hint that more of that will be explored.

\”[They] have this really fraught childhood that we’ll explain more in the upcoming episodes,” showrunner Beth Schwartz explained earlier this year. “[We’ll see] how they got to this place where … JJ is willing to kill his own brother, and how he went down this path.”

Although there’s no telling if the Green Arrow and the Canaries spinoff will be picked up to series, the notion that the Arrowverse could have an avenue for some of its future-set events is certainly interesting.

“It was definitely meant to grow the world that we had already built and to see the next generation of what Oliver and Felicity and our present-day team have worked so hard for, and sort of see what happens in the future,” Schwartz said back in April. “We love those characters and would love to see them go on in some capacity after the show’s over.”

Arrow airs Tuesdays at 9/8c on The CW.