With the season 7 premiere of Arrow now right around the corner, now is the perfect time for a recap of all that happened last season.
When season 7 of Arrow begins, it will be working out of the tight corner that the season 6 finale got the show into. To get the FBI’s help in tacking down Ricardo Diaz, Oliver turned himself in for being the Green Arrow. Now he is facing life in prison and Diaz is free to whisper-threaten more people in season 7.
So how did Arrow get itself into this mess? To answer that question, it is time to take a look back at the events of season 6.
The season opens a few months after the explosion on Lian-Yu and quickly all the main characters are revealed to have survived the explosion. Thea is in a coma, leaving Samantha as the only casualty of an explosion that destroyed an entire island. A little anticlimatic.
This leaves Oliver as a single father to William, who is not the biggest fan of his father being the Green Arrow. It’s a combination of Oliver being the reason his mother died and fear over Oliver dying too. So Oliver decides to give up being the Green Arrow and pass the bow to Diggle.
Only Diggle is hiding that he has a tremor from the explosion and is using drugs made by Ricardo Diaz to get through the day. And also someone has released a photo revealing that Oliver is the Green Arrow.
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It is the work of Cayden James, who has put together a team to destroy Oliver because the Green Arrow killed his son. This storyline is sounding awfully familiar. The team includes Vigilante, Black Siren (Laurel from Earth-2), Anatoly and Diaz. And the FBI is watching Oliver like a hawk because of the photo.
After the first ever name drop of Bruce Wayne in the Arrowverse, Team Arrow is. able to prove the photo is fake and convince most people that Oliver isn’t the Green Arrow. It helps that for now, Diggle is wearing the suit. But Agent Watson is still coming after Oliver as she is out to prove he really is the Green Arrow.
Soon, the truth about Diggle is revealed and Oliver takes back the suit, promising to give it back once Felicity and Curtis heal him. Conveniently, this is right on time for the crossover, so time for a wedding and to fight some Nazis.
By this point, Olicity is a thing again, and Felicity decides to turn Barry and Iris’ make-up wedding into a double ceremony. Not cool, Felicity. But you and Raisa are William’s best options for parents, so it is good for him that you will be around more.
This brings us to the midseason finale, where the seeds for what will knock this strong start to the season are sown. Someone on Team Arrow has turned on Oliver and agreed to testify against him. To find out who it is, the original team members start spying on the new team. They learn that Rene flipped to get back custody of his daughter.
But because of the spying, the three new team members can no longer trust Oliver. Rene, Dinah and Curtis quit to start their own team.
Black Siren breaks into the Arrowcave, planting cameras everywhere so Cayden can know Oliver’s every move. Luckily, they are about to have a spy of their own. Vigilante is revealed to be Dinah’s thought to be dead partner, Vince. He tells her that he is actually a good guy and they resume their relationship.
Cayden soon learns that Vince is a mole. He sets a trap for Vince that Team Arrow falls for. Vince gets killed by Black Siren. Dinah blames Oliver because the team split up and Dinah needs a reason to be pissed at Oliver for the rest of the season.
Following Vince’s death, New Team Arrow is even more pissed at Oliver. Curtis is the only one speaking to the old team as he is still working with Felicity. They fix Diggle’s tremor and start a tech company together.
Even though Diiggle is now healed, Oliver is not willing to give up being the Green Arrow because William is now okay with his dad’s other job. This comes after Oliver saves William and Star City from being blown up.
Turns out, Oliver never killed Cayden’s son. Someone altered a photo to make it look that way so that Cayden would go after Oliver, creating chaos in Star City. Say hello to the true big bad of Arrow season 6, Ricardo Diaz.
Now say goodbye again because that is now a large gap where his character does absolutely nothing. Instead we, get to in-fighting between the Team Arrows and Lance trying to turn Black Siren into his Laurel.
Even Diggle and Oliver start fighting because plot. And Diggle is mad that Oliver went back on his promise to give up being the Green Arrow once Diggle got healthy. Oliver also has to get to a place where he needs to do everything alone, because in six seasons he has learned absolutely nothing.
It is not until episode 19 that Diaz really comes back, as this is the episode that reveals his backstory. He is an orphan who had a rough childhood and wants to control everything, staring with Star City. There is also a powerful, never mentioned before group called the Quadrant that controls all criminal activity, and Diaz will do whatever it takes to join.
He takes control of this group by killing most of its members. Using the Quadrant and the Star City police force that he controls, Diaz takes over Star City. Oliver stands trial for being the Green Arrow and is saved by the return of the Human Target.
The good news is that Diaz gaining more power finally puts an end to the awful infighting storyline. Dinah is still at odds with Lance because she wants to kill Black Siren and he wants to save his “daughter”.
Oliver makes a deal with Watson to get Diaz. But he ends up getting away. Oliver is off to prison and Lance died for Black Siren. She tried to turn on Diaz because she realized he was crazy.
On top of Lance, there were a couple of other big exits this season. Early on, there was the two-part Deathstroke arc. More of Slade’s backstory is revealed as he asks for Oliver’s help finding his son. Seeing as the Arrowverse can now not use the character anymore, it acted as Slade Wilson’s swan song.
Thea Queen also said goodbye to Star City. She left with Nyssa so they could clean up their fathers’ mistakes. Roy went with them, but he will be back in Star City for season 7.