Stephen Amell Reveals How Arrow’s Hundredth Episode Begins

When Arrow‘s hundredth episode airs later this year, the milestone will come smack in the middle of another big event — The CW’s annual superhero event crossover, this time bringing together the Green Arrow with cast members from DC’s Legends of Tomorrow as well as The Flash and Supergirl.

Much has been made so far about the fact that it’s a balancing act servicing the needs of both a huge, ambitious crossover about an alien invasion and a hundredth episode that celebrates the accomplishments and history of Arrow specifically.

The way they’ve made it sound is that the crossover event doesn’t “cross over” quite as much into Arrow; it’s more used as a narrative device to put the characters where they have to be for the hundredth epsiode.

“I do get to punch an alien, but not in the hundredth episode of Arrow,” series star Stephen Amell told ComicBook.com this weekend at the Arrow 100 Episodes party in Vancouver.

That still leaves episodes of The Flash and Legends of Tomorrow, which air on either side of Arrow, for a lot of big, bombastic, alien-punching action. And, of course, Amell and others involved with the show were fairly cagey about just what the episode itself will bring. With lots of returning guest stars and “no flashbacks” promised, it seems likely there’s a pretty elaborate shell game going on here — one that Amell doesn’t help when he says that returning guest stars will return “in a very unexpected spot at a very, very retrospectively expected time.”

That seems to be the rule of the day: there’s going to be some stuff in this episode that you expect from Arrow, even if it’s not coming at exactly the expected moment.

“The hundredth episode of Arrow begins in a very appropriate way: it begins with Oliver running,” Amell revealed. “We’ve had him running into the premiere almost every year, we didn’t have him running in this year, but we have him running in the hundredth episode.”

Arrow airs on Wednesdays at 8 p.m. ET/PT on The CW.