'Arrow' EP Says The Longbow Hunters Will Be a "Force" in Season 7

Ricardo Diaz may be the primary threat this season on Arrow, but he will have some help from some very deadly allies, a team of assassins known as The Longbow Hunters and according to series showrunner Beth Schwartz, they're a major threat for the former Team Arrow.

"They're a force," Schwartz said in an interview with Entertainment Weekly. "Each one has a different team member that they'll go toe-to-toe with, specifically with what weapons they use."

Arrow's Longbow Hunters, who will make their debut in Monday's aptly titled episode "The Longbow Hunters", consists of Red Dart (Supernatural's Holly Elissa), Kodiac (Van Helsing's Michael Jonsson), and The Silencer (Orphan Black's Miranda Edwards). The team has been teased since the Season 6 finale, and according to Emily Bett Rickards who plays Felicity on the series, will be even more difficult to deal with due to Team Arrow having disbanded to keep their immunity deals.

"When you have a multitude of people who are sort of distracting [you] and working as a team toward evil, you're, for lack of a better word, screwed," Rickards said. "The team doesn't necessarily have a designated leader since they've been broken up. It goes back to, what is everybody's cost? If you don't have the same amount of cost, you're going to face disagreement and trouble and possibly not having good teamwork against three people that are working together as a team with a dedicated message, which is probably, at the root of it, evil. They're kind of outnumbered in terms of mental game, which transfers into the powers that they have."

Even with the Longbow Hunter being "evil", they're among characters that series star Stephen Amell told ComicBook.com he would love to interact with.

"There are a number of characters on the show that I would like to interact with right now that I'm not being given the opportunity to interact with, the Longbow Hunters among them," Amell said. "I love the idea that we set them up in the finale and we're starting to pay them off in the early part of this season. I also like that we carried over a villain. Having that dynamic is interesting. That was probably the most interesting thing."

Arrow airs Mondays at 8/7c on The CW. "The Longbow Hunters" airs October 22nd.