Arrow star promises "a lot of callbacks" in final season: "Fans are gonna love it"

David-Jones plays Connor Hawke on the CW superhero series and told RadioTimes.com that the Arrow writing team have plotted this season "with the fans in mind", with "a lot of people from [Oliver's] past" set to resurface.

"I got so many calls from Warner Bros. about spoilers last year!" David-Jones laughed. "Let me tell you something – they employ snipers... who are only outmatched by the legal team that they have over there!"

But he did let the following slip. "You can expect a lot of callbacks to earlier seasons of Arrow. In this, they're trying to wrap up an entire series, you know? It's not just wrapping up a season and having the Big Bad of that season and everything...

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"They're trying to bring about a cathartic end to this entire series and this man's journey, so you're going to see a lot of people from his past we've brought back in, you're going to see a lot of moments revisited from earlier seasons and I think fans are gonna love it. They've really written this season with the fans in mind."

So far, Thea Queen (Willa Holland), Katana (Rila Fukushima) and Yao Fei (Byron Mann) are among the characters confirmed to return for encores in Arrow's final season.

Shooting on the show's concluding eighth season has been a "bittersweet" experience, David-Jones – who joined Arrow in its seventh season – told us.

"All of [the cast] are so much fun to work with and they joke around... there's a lot of love and history between all of them," he said. "But at the end of a take, they'll be like, 'This is the last time we're ever gonna be in this room' and everyone'll grow sombre...

"It's this realisation that for them eighth years is coming to an end and it's this show that's been such a major part of their lives. It's saddest for them... I've been up there for about a year and it's still sad for me, y'know? But it's so much fun working with them... every day, it's hilarious."

Arrow season 8 airs Tuesday nights on The CW in the US. New episodes will air on Sky One and be available on NOW TV in the UK from Wednesday, October 30.