The Season 5 finale of Arrow brought back a bunch of fan favourite characters for an
epic showdown on Lian Yu and culminated in an explosive cliffhanger.
Yippee-ki-yay, movie lovers, it's Jan here and in this video I want to take a look at
that Season 5 cliffhanger ending and see if we can figure out who survived and who's returning
for Season 6.
A quick reminder that my Arrowverse giveaway is still running, so, for a chance to win
any of these Arrow, Flash or Supergirl Funko Pops, subscribe and leave a comment with your
thoughts on the finale or Season 6.
And just be aware that, obviously, there are spoilers ahead if you're not up-to-date yet
with Arrow.
So, this season Prometheus was certainly the villain we've been looking for on Arrow, always
ten steps ahead of Oliver.
I really enjoyed Josh Segarra's performance and his character was so irredeemably bad
that he even killed himself at the end hoping to destroy Oliver's life by setting off the
bombs on Lian Yu to kill almost everyone that Ollie cared about.
As shocking as this was, this is, of course, a comic book show and unless we see bodies
dead and buried, and even sometimes then, it's hard to believe that they are all really
dead.
On top of that, various characters that were on the island at the end have already been
confirmed for Season 6 by the showrunners, so let's examine who probably made it and
how they survived.
Actress Katie Cassidy has already been confirmed to return as Black Siren for Season 6 and,
given she was working with Prometheus, it's quite likely she was aware of the bombs that
he'd set on the island, so she probably had a means of getting off the island already
arranged.
As Black Siren is coming back as a regular next season, I wonder whether she could even
get a main villain role, if not for the whole season, then perhaps at least initially?
And actors Juliana Harkavy and Rick Gonzalez who play Dinah and Rene are also confirmed
as returning for Season 6.
In the finale, we finally see Dinah validated as the new Black Canary by Quentin Lance,
which is nice because Dinah was the original Black Canary in the comics before Laurel Lance
took on the mantle.
But how did she, Wild Dog and the others survive all those bombs?
Remember, Oliver says to Felicity there's an Argus supply ship on the Eastern side of
the island, but that appears to be just minutes before the bombs go off, so it seems unlikely
they could have made it there in time.
However, let's not forget that Slade Wilson is with them, and he knows Lian Yu well and
has just spent many years locked up in a reinforced supermax prison on the island.
So, I suspect Slade probably took as many of them as he could to the safety of the Argus
prison bunker.
Speaking of Deathstroke, given that in the finale Oliver gives Slade Wilson a file with
information on his son Joe, it seems unlikely that the show would open up this thread without
exploring it further down the road, which suggests that there are possible storylines
ahead about Slade looking for his son.
Now, Manu Bennett is currently busy with other roles, so whether he will return or how much
he could return for Season 6 is still unsure.
Deathstroke was a great character when he was a regular on the show and with the finale
cameo of Oliver's mother Moira, who Slade killed in Season 2, it would be amazing to
see Deathstroke return and further redeem himself next season.
Felicity, Diggle, Thea, Curtis, Quentin and Nyssa were also with Slade, Dinah and Rene
at the end, and obviously it wouldn't be a good move for the show to kill off these main
characters in between seasons.
I suspect most of them made it to safety with Slade, but there's always a chance we get
to see a few of them picked off in the opening episode of season 6.
For example, Thea has had a lot less to do this season, so you could argue that she'd
be the most obvious one to go, however, I feel she won't be killed off on the island,
especially as Merlyn may have given his life to save hers.
But could the show pull a similar move to what The Flash did this season with HR and
Tracy, in other words, did they rekindle the romance between Felicity and Oliver as a way
to raise the stakes for her character before possibly killing her off?
After all, Prometheus did say to Oliver, 'it's gonna be lonely without mom and Felicity',
just before he blew up the island.
Or, given the fact that there's little audience attachment to the character, maybe it will
be Samantha, the mother of Oliver's son, William, who doesn't make it off Lian Yu.
A couple of baddies whose fate is less certain would be Evelyn and Talia.
Evelyn was last seen still locked up in the cage and Talia had been knocked out by Nyssa.
Though you can never totally count out a character who's got the name al-Ghul!
Now, let's not forget about another teased-but-not-seen death during the finale: Malcolm Merlyn.
Merlyn took Thea's place after she stepped on a landmine and sent her away with the others
after Digger Harkness, aka Captain Boomerang, and his gang caught up with them.
Thea then saw an explosion in the distance and assumed Merlyn had died, but remember
Slade Wilson's words to Boomerang earlier in the episode: "Assumption is the mother
of all failures".
However, John Barrowman, who plays Merlyn, made a Facebook video shortly after the episode
finished, saying that he won't be back for Season 6 and that he's very sad to be leaving
the Arrowverse.
So, it looks like this is the end for Merlyn then, but at least he was able to redeem himself
somewhat by sacrificing himself for his daughter.
Of course, we're still in comic book territory here so it's possible that the showrunners
decided to have Merlyn's death off-screen to leave things more open for the future.
After all, Merlyn was looking pretty cocky when Boomerang turned up and it's not unfeasible
that he could have pulled Boomerang onto the landmine while launching himself as far away
as he could from the explosion.
And let's not forget this green vial that he wears around his neck.
If that contains waters from the Lazarus Pit, then he could use it to heal any major injuries
from the blast.
Malcolm has returned from apparent death before and has dubbed himself the Magician both in
the TV show and the comics so, even if he did die, we can't absolutely rule out his
return, even if it's only in flashbacks.
So, who do you think survived Lian Yu and what did you think about the Arrow season
finale?
Also, what would you like to see happen in Season 6?
Don't forget to comment and subscribe to enter my Arrowverse Funko Pop giveaway.
And if you enjoyed this, do please leave a like and while you're here check out my Flash,
Supergirl and other DC TV and movie videos by tapping or clicking the links here.
Thanks for watching and see you next time.
Yippee-ki-yay, movie lovers!