‘Arrow’: Every Character Who Returns in “Emerald Archer”

Tonight’s episode of Arrow was a big one. The CW series hit the milestone 150th episode with “Emerald Archer” and with that being such a major achievement the series celebrated with a special episode — one that featured a lot of familiar faces from the series’ history.

Spoilers for tonight’s 150th episode of Arrow, “Emerald Archer”, below.

The episode was presented as a documentary about Oliver Queen/Green Arrow (Stephen Amell) and featured “footage” of interviews with various figures over the course of the past seven years. In order to achieve this, many characters returned some who haven’t been seen for several seasons. On top of that, there was footage incorporated into the episode from the different seasons as well, ensuring that many of the major players across Arrow‘s seven seasons were represented.

“When we knew our 150th episode was coming up, we obviously wanted to do something special,” showrunner Beth Schwartz told ComicBook.com. “I know for our 100th episode that we were all very pleased with how that turned out and it felt so nostalgic and perfect, and so we knew we kind of had to try to one-up ourselves. The room came up with the brilliant idea to film it documentary-style, and it allowed us to use all of our favorite characters from past and present in this format, which was something that was really important to us because as you’re hitting such a milestone, you want to see those characters that made the series what it is.”

Curious to see what characters “returned” for tonight’s episode? We’ve compiled a list so read on for more!

What did you think about Arrow‘s 150th episode? Let us know in the comments below.

Arrow airs Mondays at 8 p.m. ET on The CW.

Quentin Lance

The first return came right in the opening of the episode. Quentin Lance (Paul Blackthorne) appeared in what was presented as archival footage, an interview from a few years before his death at the end of Season 6.

Thea Queen

Thea Queen (Willa Holland) may have departed Star City in Season 6, but not before giving an interview to the documentary makers. 

Sara Lance

The Legends of Tomorrow leader took a brief break from being captain of the Waverider to grant an interview about the Green Arrow, seemingly not too long after Quentin’s untimely death.

Cindy “Sin” Simone

Last seen in Season 3’s “Uprising”, Sin (Bex Taylor-Klaus) also makes an appearance in an interview for the documentary. It’s not clear when her interview took place, though the way she talked about how the vigilantes helped her it seems a bit like Cindy is alive and well somewhere in Star City even in the present day.

William Clayton

That’s right, Oliver’s son returns tonight on break from boarding school. However, there may be quite a bit more to that as Felicity discovers by episode’s end that William (Jack Moore) has actually been expelled from school.

Rory Regan/Ragman

After saving the day from a nuclear blast in Season 5 and in the process having caused his rags to lose their powers, Ragman (Joe Dinicol) departed Team Arrow to seek out a fix for the issue, though he promised to someday return. While Ragan didn’t return to the team tonight, he did appear in an interview for the documentary. Unfortunately, his status was left as something of a question mark by episode’s end: his mask was among those collected by Chimera and with no one being able to contact Rory, it’s feared the vigilante hunter may have killed him.

Barry Allen

Interview about the Oliver Queen? You bet his friend Barry Allen (Grant Gustin) would be glad to sit down and chat — even if he did come off as nervous the entire time.

Earth-1 Laurel Lance/Black Canary

Laurel (Katie Cassidy) may have died in Season 4’s “Eleven-Fifty-Nine” after having been stabbed by Damien Darhk but she still appeared in tonight’s episode thanks to “archival footage” of Star City’s original Black Canary in action.

Helena Bertinelli/Huntress

Another character to return via “archival footage” is Helena Bertinelli/Huntress (Jessica De Gouw). However, by episode’s end she was in the same situation as Ragman. Chimera had her mask and no one was able to make contact with her, leading to the assumption that the vigilante hunter may have killed her for the trophy.

Connor Hawke

Okay, we get it. This one technically isn’t a return as the adult John Diggle Jr, aka Connor Hawke (Joseph David-Jones), actually appeared on the Legends of Tomorrow episode “Star City 2046” but considering his surprise appearance in Arrow’s own grim future timeline, this seemed like a pretty good “return” to us. Connor is seen talking with Blackstar — whom he refers to as “Mia” — about the copy of “Emerald Archer” she’s watching. He the ends up going with her to what was once Team Arrow’s bunker, long ago abandoned but perhaps a good place to set up shop in the future.