Arrow Season 5 Spoilers

A new job brings new challenges. "When Oliver was the CEO of QC, he just showed up and wore a suit," executive producer Wendy Mericle says. "But when you're the mayor, it's very different. And he's wanting to do that job well. That's the difference: He's taking this seriously." With all of this year's many new recruits and plots, "the one thing that anchors everything together is the mayor stories," the EP shares, adding that Oliver is "very much the focus of definitely the first nine [episodes]."

Oliver's right-hand man is "actually stationed in Chechnya," Mericle says. "He's very much a man without a state. He's away from his family. He's away from the team, so he's away from that family. He's trying to figure out how he can get that sense of himself back after killing his brother." When Dig does return to Star City, he'll find a very different Team Arrow. "He's not going to love all these little upstarts here, trying to take over his role," Mericle previews. "But he'll adjust. He's going to find some common ground with Wild Dog, and that will help take the sting out of it."

The tech whiz is "in a very similar place to Dig," Mericle describes. "She's really grappling with what happened in Havenrock and the guilt. She's consumed with that guilt. She's broken up with Oliver, she's lost her company, and the one thing she has in this life is the bunker. She's doubled down on doing that. Until she deals with the guilt and gets past what happened in Havenrock, she's going to stay in that state of limbo."

After a "rough go of it" both in terms of vigilantism and love (RIP, Alex), Oliver's sister will take after him in a different way by "trying to figure out her legacy through City Hall," Mericle says. "That's going to be her story for most of the season."

The former police captain is "still really dealing with the loss of his daughter [Laurel]," Mericle previews. "It's such a huge shock," and there's little comfort to be found since "Sara's not in Star City, and he's estranged from his wife, obviously." But eventually, Lance "will have an important role to play in City Hall."

Felicity's colleague "has also kind of Jerry Maguire-ed his way out of" Palmer Tech, Mericle reveals. And now that Curtis is a full-fledged member of Team Arrow, "part of his arc will be, 'Am I good in the field? What am I good at as Mr. Terrific?' He and Felicity will definitely be cooking up something in the bunker."

Season 4 villain Damien Darhk got some heat from viewers because his "agenda was so big and so broad, and it didn't have anything to do necessarily with Oliver or Star City," Mericle acknowledges. "That was one way of doing a Big Bad." Season 5's new foe operates in "a different way" that "will be very personal, and the ending will be, correspondingly, very specific to Oliver."

"Ultimately, what we're trying to do with them this season is the same thing we've always done, which is we wrote to them because there was so much chemistry between Stephen [Amell] and Emily [Bett Rickards]," Mericle says. "Now they're both in crisis mode. Oliver's got two really big jobs, and she is spinning out about Havenrock. Until they've gotten some clarity for themselves, there's not much room for the relationship side of things at the moment. But we'll see where it goes."

In tackling Oliver's time in Russia, "we really wanted to go gritty, dark and make it feel very real," Mericle describes. "We're dealing with the Bratva, and the Bratva is, as we all know, a pretty interesting and messed-up institution." It's in the flashbacks that Oliver will encounter Dolph Lundgren's "scary and formidable" government strongman, who is connected to Taiana's family. Adds Mericle: "He's a little bit of a badass."