The CWArrow is heading in a whole new direction this season.
Not only is that literally how new showrunner Beth Schwartz has described the show, but it's also accurate chronologically. The show, now in its eighth season, is known for framing itself around flashbacks. Now, they're venturing into flashfowards.
In the season premiere, we met a man on a boat, heading toward Lian Yu in search of someone. Eventually we found out that the man was Oliver's son William (Ben Lewis), now in his 30s, and the person he was searching for (or at least the person he found) was a much older and beardier Roy (Colton Haynes). The jump into the future shocked fans in the first week, and those jumps continued in week two as we learned a bit more about William and his current journey.
Below, you'll find everything we've learned so far about the future of our Star City faves.
Our first vision of the future was a man on a boat in a storm. The boat's captain said they should turn around, but the man suggested he could just offer some more money. The boat captain said usually people pay that much to get away from the island. Even 20 years in the future, Lian Yu still sucks. (Episode 1)
Boat man was very specifically looking for someone on the island, but got waylaid a bit by getting caught in a trap set by someone who sounded an awful lot like Roy (Colton Haynes), who we hadn't seen since he went off with Thea (Willa Holland) last season. Roy was not thrilled about this new visitor. (Episode 1)
In present day, we watched Felicity bid farewell to William before sending him off to boarding school (to protect him) by giving him the hozen, which symbolizes reconnection. It's the same arrowhead-shaped stone that once contained the coordinates for the mirakuru supply way back at the beginning of the series, but then became a symbolic gift that Oliver gave to Thea, who then gave it to Felicity. Felicity told William that as long as he had the stone, she'd always be able to find him. (Episode 1)
In the future, the man from the boat holds up the hozen to prove to Roy that his father is Oliver Queen, meaning he's actually a grown up William. (Episode 1)
Here it is!
William confirmed to Roy that Felicity and Oliver "pretty much" just left him, and at this point all we can assume is that he never saw them again after being sent away for his own protection, because we have no other information. "I survived," he told Roy. (Episode 2)
"My ex-boyfriend wonders why I have commitment issues," he joked when explaining what happened to his parents. Gonna need more info on this, please. (Episode 2)
William didn't just have the hozen to prove his parentage. "Three weeks ago" it started beeping, and he opened it up to find GPS coordinates to the island. After telling him to give up and go home, Roy admitted he knew exactly "what this is." (Episode 2)
Not only did William pay at least 200 grand to get to LIan Yu and offer to pay another 100, he also apparently spent over a billion dollars trying to develop affordable magnetic levitation. Is this Queen inheritance? A life insurance payout? Or is he just a genius who was partially raised by a couple of rich geniuses? Who knows?! (Episode 2)
Roy chastised William for bringing up the past after he mentioned that time he left Star City with Thea, because he was on the island to forget about it. It feels pretty safe to say something bad (or several bad somethings) have happened in the years since, but what? (Episode 2)
Roy led William to a grave, which was separate from the four Japanese soldier graves Oliver had originally found and told Roy about. William and Roy started digging, thinking they were about to find a corpse, but instead they found Oliver's bow and arrows. (Episode 2)
Oliver's bow contained a secret note, which Roy read, became concerned about (look how concerned he is!), and then burned. William was all "What the hell?!" and Roy said to get his stuff, because they had to go back to Star City. What will they find there? WHO will they find there? Will their trip to an actual city mean this gallery will have no more screenshots of men in a forest? We can only hope! (Episode 2)
Roy and William have officially arrived back in Star City, and they've got some new coordinates to follow that they think are coming from Felicity, even if neither of them is exactly thrilled about being back.
As we later learned, "Star City fell when the Glades rose. They build a wall. They closed their borders. No one outside the Glades is allowed to enter. The SCPD are basically hired guns. They protect the Glades from what's outside their wall."
(Episode 4)
Willam and Roy were sent to Smoak Technologies by the coordinates and almost got in trouble for visiting Felicity's old company, which is now a "restricted area," but William did manage to pull a Felicity and open up a secret vault in her office.
Inside the vault was...a Rubix Cube?!
We're gonna need this secret pronto, because Dinah is dang hot in her 50s. Roy looks good, but she looks like straight up magic.
Anyway, she's no longer police captain and is now back to being a badass vigilante (with amazing hair), saving Roy and William and explaining to them that things in Star City are not as they remember, and of course, that they shouldn't have come back here. (Episode 4)
Rene's daughter has also grown into a badass and has been fighting alongside Dinah, though she says her father "wouldn't be caught dead" in Star City. Interesting phrasing or just accurate? We're questioning everything considering that last bombshell... (Episode 4)
The picture above is William's face when he found out that Felicity couldn't possibly be sending him coordinates because she is, in fact, no longer living. That was how the episode ended, so we don't have the how or the when or any other context, but surely we'll be getting it soon...if it's even real. We've been here before, Arrow. You can't fool us. (Episode 4)
Felicity is not only dead, but she was murdered "about two weeks ago, give or take."
Two weeks feels suspiciously recent, but it could also be what triggered this journey William is now on...if she's actually dead.
Before she died, Felicity apparently became "very different." She was calling herself the Calculator (AKA the supervillain name once used by her father), and based on what William and co. eventually found on Felicity's weird trail of clues, we kinda believe it...
The long trail of clues led William, Dinah, Roy, and Zoe to a set of virtual plans to blow up Star City. They theorized that maybe she had a change of heart before going through with the dynamite plan, and maybe that's what got her killed and made her think to reach out to William.
Meanwhile, back in the present, Felicity had a gun trained on an arrested Diaz and was about to pull the trigger, until Laurel arrived to tell her a deal had been made, and Oliver was about to get out of prison.
Roy and Dinah are keeping a big secret, but we don't know what it means yet. The note that Roy found in Oliver's bow apparently contained "the mark of four," which is what made him go with William. They're not sharing it with anyone else yet (especially because they're not sure they can trust Oliver's son), but Juliana Harkavy says it's something that will "continue to unify the team in the future."
As we learned in episode 10, the Mark includes Dinah, Rene, Roy, Diggle, Oliver, and Felicity.
A new scene gave us a glimpse of the Glades, which seem to be doing much better than Star City itself. At some point, Rene became the mayor of the Glades, and his daughter Zoe is his chief of staff. As he claimed, the Glades are the greatest place on earth, and we only believe him because EP Beth Schwartz told us the Glades were the "complete opposite" of Star City.
Rene seems completely unwilling to help anyone in Star City, even after Zoe and Dinah told him about the plans to blow up the city, and about Felicity's death. He told Dinah if she ever came back he'd arrest her, and he refused to give them access to his security program to help them locate the bombs, so they stole the access.
This dude, who works for Mayor Rene and believes Star City is a cancer, seems to have admitted to killing dear Felicity.
"Smoak was becoming a liability. She had to be dealt with. Is that a problem?"
He also worried that Rene was getting cold feet for whatever they have planned. But what do they have planned, and why did Felicity need to die for it? Answers are coming, but this wait is straight up painful.
Stay tuned each week for more clues and questions about where the heck this show is going this season!
Arrow airs Mondays at 8 p.m. on the CW.