Arrow Casting News: Cops and Criminals Descending on Starling City

Once Upon a Time

star David Anders will guest star on at least one upcoming episode of Arrow as a villain, while True Blood's Janina Gavankar will join the cast as a recurring police officer. According to TVLine, "Anders' character, Cyrus Vanch, will arrive in Starling City fresh off a prison sentence. When the police can't get the career baddie off the streets, Laurel will call on Arrow — which is precisely what Vanch wants. In a bid to become the leader of all of the city's unsavory characters, Vanch will attempt to take Arrow down for good." Vanch is, almost surprisingly at this stage in the show's guest-star-heavy first season, not a character who has a comic book analogue as far as we can tell. Gavankar, who's also known for her work on The L Word, makes the trek from premium cable to the basic variety and takes a gig as McKenna Hall, a police officer who knew Oliver in his pre-island days. According to Green Arrow TV, there's a McKenna Hall on campus at Notre Dame, which is likely where the name comes from. That should save some fans from scouring Hawkman's family tree for a likely candidate. Hall will first appear in the upcoming episode that features Seth Gabel's debut as the drug dealer pushing a new product called Vertigo on the market. His character, a reinvention of the DC supervillain Count Vertigo, has been described as the first season's "big bad." The next episode of Arrow, featuring The Huntress and co-written by Geoff Johns, airs tonight at 8 p.m. EST.