Arrow Season 7: 10 Major Predictions

How has Oliver coped behind bars for this long? Why isn't Roy with Thea? How did Black Siren become District Attorney? What else happened over the summer?

A lot has went down since Arrow's sixth season finale and, like always, the show will be taking a brief time jump in order for it to continue taking place in "real time". This will undoubtedly leave a lot of unanswered questions and, quite frankly, all of them can't be solved with a throwaway line of dialogue. That's where the flashbacks come in.

Arrow relied heavily on flashbacks for its first five seasons as it used them to tell the story of Oliver's time on Lian Yu. Once that story came full-circle, Season 6 ditched the regular flashback format. However, we didn't lose them altogether as the show did return to the useful device to create tension when necessary, especially in the premiere when everyone's fates were revealed following the Lian Yu explosion.

Thus, we should see something similar happen in Season 7 as the writers attempt to fill in the blanks between May and October. But that doesn't necessarily have to be the only time we see them. From Roy Harper's life on the run to Black Siren's pre-villainous life on Earth-2, there is plenty of scope for episodic flashbacks throughout the season that would undoubtedly get us reacquainted with some of the less-appreciated characters. So expect the writers to resurrect the flashbacks when the narrative requires them to.