Arrow: Season Two's Best Easter Eggs

It's Easter, and that of course means that our attention turns to Easter eggs... ...but as an entertainment website, we're really less concerned with the painted, hard-boiled variety and more interested in the ones hidden in movies and TV shows to reward viewers paying close attention. Few places are more loaded up with such Easter eggs than The CW's Arrow, which routinely has a dozen or more DC Comics references in any given episode. With only a few weeks to go before the season finale, though, and Easter coming but once a year, we figured we would run down some of our favorites from the season so far. There were many, many more this season...we'll try and keep these, mostly, to the ones that didn't announce themselves (so no Barry Allen or Nyssa, for instance, since their presence was the whole setup for an episode).

Channel 52 Early in the season, when Quentin and Laurel Lance were abducted by Dollmaker, Oliver Queen received a text message telling him to turn on the news. He asks his sister to turn on Channel 52–which apparently is the local station, or maybe cable news. In any event, we get Bethany Snow–who has appeared in the pilot episode of Arrow before, so that's no surprise…but in the back of any given DC Comics comic book these days, fans will see Snow (originally a supporting character in the Teen Titans and an acolyte of Brother Blood) hosting the Channel 52 news. The Channel 52 Easter egg has recurred in probably 80% of this year's episodes, becoming one of the most frequently spotted and commented-upon by our readers.

Metamorpho Chemical We've known for a while that Metamorpho Chemical was going to appear in an upcoming episode of Arrow, but when it did, ti came in the form of a pretty obvious name-drop on a building. And it appears to be out of commission–so does that mean we won't get to see Rex Mason and company anytime soon? Well, Rex was probably a long shot (at least in Arrow) anyway, but we might see some of his supporting characters show up eventually...a dude with powers could turn up after The Flash pilot opens that floodgate.

The League of Assassins First of all, they actually name-dropped Ra's al Ghul! There was some doubt that, even with the League showing up, Ra's would be on the table so soon after he played a key role in the Christopher Nolan-directed Dark Knight Trilogy. Hearing his name come out of the assassin's mouth right away? Well, that was a good thing. Second, we find that Black Canary was trained with the League of Assassins. That's interesting since, for those who have been doing some extracurricular reading and know who Canary secretly is, we can pretty much start to connect some dots as to the whys and hows of it. Third…apparently, the League of Assassins have been active in Starling City all along. The costume worn by that League member when he came to get Canary was remarkably similar to the one worn by Malcolm Merlyn last season.

Sebastian Blood is Brother Blood in this version of the series–unless we're to find he's got an identical twin out there with a penchant for similar "save the city" rhetoric. That's probably not news to most comic book fans, but the villain could easily have been Blood's father, in a Merlyn-like swerve to keep fans on their toes. Will it be a family trait, like in the comics? Hard to say; they didn't go that way with Tommy. One thing is certain; it's likely that he's got connections to the League of Assassins, since that seems to be what's dominating the series this year.

The Wall This season marks the introduction of Cynthia Addai-Robinson as Amanda Waller. She first appeared as the head of A.R.G.U.S. in "Keep  Your Enemies Closer" but has also appeared in "Suicide Squad" and is expected in the finale. She also seems to have some past with Oliver and Shade we don't know about yet...

The KGBeast We've seen David Nykl as Anatoli Knyazev already– on the ship, he shared a cell wall with Oliver. In "Keep Your Enemies Closer," we saw him in his glory; he's a man who can get things done, a member of the Russian mob who brags that there is nothing in Russia that cannot be bought. He's powerful and esteemed and while so far he hasn't turned on Oliver and company, it's worth noting that in the comics, he's a former KGB operative known best as the Batman villain KGBeast. Will he go that route in the show? The producers have been careful not to use that name…but then, they've avoided talking other things that later came to fruition, too, like Black Canary.

Born on a Monday? Cyrus Gold, better known to comic book fans as Solomon Grundy, appeared in the final moments of "State Vs. Queen," teamed with Brother Blood. The first successful recipient of Mirakuru in Starling City is presumed dead but…well, it should be interesting to see how that plays out. Anybody catch whether this episode takes place on a Monday? The zombie-like powerhouse has faced down everybody from Alan Scott to Batman to the Justice League, and squaring off with Green Arrow isn't, as you can see at right, unheard-of either. Harley Quinn Any doubt that Cassidy Alexa's cameo appearance in "Suicide Squad" represented the first Arrowverse appearance of Dr. Harleen Quinzel (Harley Quinn) evaporated when the phrase "I'm a trained therapist!" escaped from the holding cell next to Amanda Waller. While that particular shot didn't make it into the cut of the episode (maybe for time, maybe it was specifically done as a promo shot to get people talking, etc.), we certainly saw enough of a tease of the character that fans who didn't know it was coming already were pretty excited about it on social media.

Killer Frost Caitlin Snow, who appears here as the female S.T.A.R. Labs tech played by Danielle Panabaker, is better known as Killer Frost in DC Comics. She'll be a regular on The Flash if indeed it goes to series, which Marc Guggenheim (Arrow Executive Producer) seems to think is more or less a done deal. Check out the behind-the-scenes video for this episode where he refers to her as a regular on "the forthcoming series."

Cisco Ramon, the other S.T.A.R. tech, is actually a Justice League member from time to time. This guy is on top of his references, too; he not only drops the word "vibe" into conversation, but follows it up by blasting Slade with a super-weapon that discharges energy that seemingly functions like Vibe's powers do in the comics.

Anybody check out the name on the boat that Ivo, and then Slade, was floating around in this season? The AMAZO.