Originally published August 13, 2016. Updated April 15, 2018.
Some 27 years after his role as Frank Castle in 1989’s The Punisher, Dolph Lundgren is returning to the world of superheroes with a guest role in the upcoming fifth season of Arrow.
“In our flashbacks in Russia — we’re set in Russia this season — we are going to be bringing in Dolph Lundgren as one of our big bads,” executive producer Wendy Mericle tells EW. “He is somebody we heard about in season 4. Kovar. We are going to bring him in and he’s going to be this super big badass guy who works for the Russian government, and is not a friend of Oliver or the Bratva. It’s part of Oliver’s promise to Taiana at the end of season 4 and it’s going to be interesting because it’s going to get complicated and very messed up very fast.”
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Marc Guggenheim also went on to reveal that the fifth season will mark the final time we get flashbacks in the show, and will see Stephen Amell’s Oliver Queen spending his time in Russia:
“We always said that Oliver had a five-year journey when he was marooned. This year, Oliver spends his time in the flashbacks in Russia. We know from various seeds we planted back in the pilot that he knows how to speak Russian, he became a Bratva captain. Sort of the flashback story in the first half of the year is going to involve Oliver’s introduction into the Bratva. He’s basically recruited into this crime organization while at the same time in the present day Oliver has recruits of his own. He’s a trainee in the past, trainer in the present, and I think that will give the audience the connect-up thematically between present in the past.”
After a violent shipwreck, billionaire playboy Oliver Queen (Stephen Amell) was missing and presumed dead for five years before being discovered alive on a remote island in the North China Sea. Oliver returned home to Star City, bent on righting the wrongs of his family and fighting injustice. As the Green Arrow, he protects his city with the help of former soldier John Diggle (David Ramsey), computer science expert Felicity Smoak (Emily Bett Rickards), his vigilante-trained sister Thea Queen (Willa Holland), former police captain Quentin Lance (Paul Blackthorne) and brilliant inventor Curtis Holt (Echo Kellum).
Newly appointed Mayor Oliver Queen finds himself challenged as he fights on two fronts for the future of Star City. With Diggle back in the military and Thea adamant about hanging up her hood as Speedy, Team Green Arrow is down to just Oliver and Felicity – but they’re no longer the only vigilantes in town. Green Arrow’s public defeat of Damien Darhk at the end of Season Four has inspired a new crop of masked heroes to step up and defend the city, though their painful inexperience makes them obstacles, rather than allies, in the field. The arrival of a deadly new adversary will force Oliver to confront questions about his own legacy, both as mayor and as the Green Arrow.
Based on the characters from DC, ARROW is from Bonanza Productions Inc. in association with Berlanti Productions and Warner Bros. Television, with executive producers Greg Berlanti (“The Flash,” “Supergirl”), Marc Guggenheim (“Eli Stone,” “Percy Jackson: Sea of Monsters”), Andrew Kreisberg (“The Flash,” “Supergirl”), Wendy Mericle (“Desperate Housewives,” “Eli Stone”) and Sarah Schechter (“Supergirl,” “Blindspot”).
Arrow’s fifth season premieres on Wednesday, October 5th.
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