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How Many Prisoners Is 'Arrow's Island Holding?

by Rachel Paige

Lian Yu often seems like a distant memory on Arrow — even for us viewers. It was the setting of Oliver Queen's flashbacks in Season 1, but it's been talked about, and even visited, a few times since he left the hellish place for good. Most recently, he returned with Thea as a sort of family bonding experience, which didn't end up being a whole lot of fun. The two did get to see some of the sights, though, like the fabulous underground A.R.G.U.S prison on the island. We know of one resident in this jail, Slade Wilson, but could there be more inmates on Arrow's island? There is definitely at least one other captive, but should we be worried about who else Slade could be talking to down there?

It's genuinely assumed, and only vaguely confirmed, that the other inmate in the prison is Digger Harkness, aka Captain Boomerang (I say "vaguely" because we haven't actually seen him down there, but it's been discussed in a general way). So at least Slade has a friend down there, right? They can talk about evil stuff together.

Now, we know Lian Yu is a pretty big island — or at least it appears that way from Oliver's travels around it. We'd be foolish to think that the prison there only holds two inmates, and that there's only one prison on the island to begin with. Remember how Lost had all its hatches scattered throughout the Island and we didn't learn about all of them at once? Maybe Lian Yu is similar on Arrow. We should expect there to be more hidden facilities on the island, and that means more hidden prisons, too.

Besides, would A.R.G.U.S. really be stupid enough to capture a bunch of bad guys, and then lock them in the same small confining space? Come on. Amanda Waller is way smarter than that. So even if there aren't any more inmates in the same space as Slade and Digger, there certainly have to be more on the island. We'd be foolish not to think that.

But who could those other inmates be? The possibilities are endless, and include a whole slew of people we haven't even met yet. That's the thing about Arrow and its use of flashbacks, we're still learning about everything that's happened these past few years. Even after spending an entire season on Lian Yu in flashbacks, we still know about only 5 percent of what Oliver was up to during that time.

The only way to even begin to figure it out who else could be on the island is by making a list of who's alive and who's dead on the show. Of course, assumed dead people can also come back to life, so really Arrow has a whole roster of potential A.R.G.U.S. inmates.

Images: Cate Cameron/The CW; thearrowgifs/Tumblr