A new player has entered the game. In "My Name is Emiko Queen," the mid-season premiere of Arrow Season 7, the new Green Arrow is on a collision course with her half-brother Oliver. Even as Oliver grapples with this revelation, he'll have to adjust to his new position with the SCPD and life outside of prison, while Felicity lays the groundwork for Smoak Tech and John Diggle tries to extract the truth out of Ricardo Diaz.

Speaking to CBR, Arrow showrunner Beth Schwartz offered some insight into the back half of Season 7. She revealed that the show will explore Emiko's backstory sooner rather than later and teased how Oliver will react to learning about his new sibling. So far as the flash forwards go, she explained the Glades' new status quo, as well as Rene's place in it and the whereabouts of Katherine McNamara's character Maya. She also weighed in on the ramifications of "Elseworlds" and the upcoming 150th episode, which will star Kelsey Grammar and be filmed like a documentary.

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CBR: What drew you to Emiko Queen?

Schwartz: Well, the fact that she's a member of the Queen family is number one. I always love the dynamic between the family. All of our family stories on the show is something that I love the most, and so having another sibling out there in the world... I felt it was definitely time to bring her in.

On the series to date, she hasn't interacted much with Oliver. What can you tease about their dynamic and how it evolves moving forward?

In [episode] 10, Oliver is going to learn more about what happened, how Robert kind of -- being such a great dad [laughs] -- has sort of abandoned this other family: Emiko and her mother. And Oliver has got to grapple, kind of, with this. He takes it on himself, as he does, as our hero that we love, that he feels guilty for what his father did and he's going to try to redeem his family, redeem what his father did and try to make it up to her, even though that's a very hard thing to do. So he's going to want to fully embrace her into the family, and she is not going to be so easy, because she obviously has a lot of negative feelings towards his family.

For quite some time, the show was known for its flashback sequences. Could we see a return to that for Emiko's backstory?

We definitely will get to see some of her backstory, of how she got to where she is, for sure.

NEXT PAGE: Flashing Forward

Speaking of time jumps, we got a tease about Rene in the flash forwards. How's he looking those days?

We're going to see him in 10, and he's living the good life in the Glades. We'll get to see how the Glades are completely different from Star City. It's full of wealth. It's clean. There's no crime. And Rene has a big part of why the Glades is like that, so we'll get to that as well as his dynamic with his daughter Zoe, who has been helping Dinah fight crime in Star City secretly.

Katherine McNamara's Maya is an interesting wrinkle in that timeline. Will we be seeing more of her?

Yes! We love her. She is amazing, and we're gonna get to know a lot more about her and sort of how she became involved in this group in the next couple episodes.

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What else can you tease about that flash forward storyline?

Well, we're still going to meet a character in the future. That's going to happen at the end of [episode] 12, which will be hopefully very exciting for a lot of people, and then we're going to have an all-future episode -- episode 16 -- where we're going to answer a lot of the questions that we've posed in the first half of the season.

Meanwhile, in the present day, Oliver is starting to work as Green Arrow with the SCPD. How is this transition from secret life to outed vigilante going for him?

Well, nothing is very easy for Oliver Queen. [laughs] So there's definitely going to be some consequences to him having his identity out there and working publicly with the SCPD. Not everyone thinks this is the best idea and we'll definitely see some conflict there, as well him trying to work alongside the SCPD, obviously they have very different styles, so that will also bring some conflict.

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The synopsis for tonight's episode revealed that Oliver is "focusing on his marriage with Felicity." What does that look like?

After they sort of made amends in the crossover episode and Oliver was really able to see her for everything she's been through since he was in prison and they came to this great understanding, they're in a very good place in their marriage. And then, when he finds out about his half-sister, Felicity is just there for him as his wife, because obviously this is a hard realization for him.

Will we see more solo stories for Felicity as we move into the back half of the season?

We're going to see both. We're going to see what -- she has defined her purpose, now that Oliver is back. Everyone was able to focus on themselves when Oliver was in prison, but she was so focused on her family and getting Oliver out of prison. So now that he is out of prison, she's going to get back to what makes her a hero, so we'll definitely focus on that and also the origins of Smoak Tech, which is exciting, but she'll also be part of the team as well. She'll be both. She'll be doing both.

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You've been with the show since the beginning, so I'm sure you more than anyone know that secrets never stay secret for long. How is Diggle grappling with the burden of working with Diaz in secret?

Well, he's going to eventually tell Oliver. He does feel bad keeping that from Oliver but knows the importance of the enemy that they're going after and, because Diaz is the one with the connection, he kind of had no choice. He'll eventually tell Oliver and Oliver is someone who has been in very similar situations. He will understand. This won't cause a huge conflict between them and he will always have Dig's back. The two of them will realize that they have both kind of gone in their separate ways and they will come back together over this.

NEXT PAGE: "Elseworlds" & Episode 150 Decoded

Arrow Kelsey Grammer

How does "Elseworlds" impact the story moving forward?

That will more impact him next season, so it's not really... This season, we're not going to see too much of that.

Episode 150 is doing something we've never really seen in the Arrowverse before. What inspired you to take a documentary-style approach to the episode and how will that change the way we see Oliver and company?

We are so excited about this episode. It is, honestly, one of my favorite episodes of all the 150 episodes of Arrow. The writers came up with this idea for the documentary style after our 100th episode, which we got lucky in terms of we were able to tell that kind of nostalgic story with all of our past characters. We wanted to do something very similar, in a more grounded way than obviously our 100th episode because it was during the crossover, which allows us to go a little off the beaten path. So, when the room came up with this idea, I loved it and I felt like it was a perfect way to showcase what the show has meant over the past seven years and we're able to tell that through this documentary.

Will it tie into the larger narrative or be a standalone episode?

The best part of it is it does tie into our narrative that we've been telling. The timing could not have worked out [more] perfectly. We get both the nostalgic of things, some old faces, as well as basically what we love about the show, and we get to see our team back together, I think for the first time this season, maybe. I'm not sure, but we get to see our team together. [laughs]

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Tell me about how you got Kelsey Grammar involved.

Well, he is the nicest man. I got to meet him yesterday, which was very exciting. Marc Guggenheim wrote him in the script from day one. Marc and Emilio Aldrich wrote this episode. They have been here -- I wanted the writers who have been here from the very beginning. Obviously, Marc, as the creator of the show, wrote the pilot and Emilio was actually the post-PA for the pilot, so he's been here even longer than me, because I joined once the season started for episode 2. It felt very special for them to write this episode. So Marc wrote Kelsey in the script from day one and then he so graciously agreed to do the episode for us.

How would you describe the overall theme of the back half of Season 7?

It's the same theme of redemption and this is kind of the answer, in everyone's arc, of their own redemption story. We'll get to see who is redeemable and who isn't by the end.


Airing Mondays at 8 pm ET/PT on The CW, Arrow stars Stephen Amell as Oliver Queen, David Ramsey as John Diggle, Emily Bett Rickards as Felicity Smoak, Rick Gonzalez as Wild Dog, Echo Kellum as Mr. Terrific, Juliana Harkavy as Black Canary, Colton Haynes as Arsenal, Kirk Acevedo as Diaz, and Katie Cassidy as Black Siren. The series returns for the back half of Season 7 on Jan. 21.