Arrow season 5: Manu Bennett returning for finale
In a post on Twitter, star Stephen Amell confirmed that the actor will be coming back in the role of Slade Wilson / Deathstroke for presumably the final episode of the season. Amell and the cast have been working on the finale as of late, and even recently had a wrap party despite there being more days of production still to come.
We cannot state enough how exciting this is, largely because of the fact that Slade remains one of our favorite Arrow villains and one of the most powerful characters within this universe. He is one of the few people who’s been able to effectively devastate Oliver to his core, and he actually has quite a bit in common with this season’s villain in Prometheus. Both villains are motivated because of events of the past, and both wanted to see Oliver suffer. The difference is that with Slade, he did eventually want to kill him; for Prometheus, we’ve never gotten the sense that this is somewhat of a priority.
The return of Bennett to the show is mostly a surprise given some of the recent drama off-screen surrounding his view of Slade’s last episode of the show. He felt like it somewhat neutered the character to have him so easily defeated on the island, where he was being held prisoner and more than likely still is. Deathstroke is one of the most formidable, terrifying foes on the show, so he shouldn’t be much of a pushover. Manu later admitted that the comments were perhaps blown out of proportion and came across as more of an attack than they were probably meant to be at first.
Could this mean that we see Bennett in a more permanent capacity in season 6? We don’t want to count our chickens before they hatch, especially given that he’s a rather busy guy thanks to his role on MTV’s The Shannara Chronicles. Still, we would be fine if we even got four or five episodes to start the show featuring Slade, where we started to see more of a new plan of attack in the wake of him being locked up for many years.
For those wondering, we think that Amell’s message in the tweet is a possible clue that Oliver may look to Slade for help in order to stop Prometheus. This could be the most “desperate measure” that there is, after all.
Excited for the return of Bennett? Share in the comments below! (Photo: The CW.)