'Arrow' season 5 came to a close a little earlier this year, dealing one of the biggest cliffhangers the show has ever seen to viewers when the island of Lian Yu exploded, with Oliver Queen aka Green Arrow (Stephen Amell) watching on whilst most of Team Arrow remained on the island's shores.

Stephen Amell opens up about the flashbacks in 'Arrow' season 6Stephen Amell opens up about the flashbacks in 'Arrow' season 6

With each day that goes by, we come a little closer to finding out if everybody will make it off the island alive, with fans wondering if there could be any casualties that shift the dynamics of the show forever.

One of the things that will definitely be changing the shape of the show however is the use of flashbacks. To-date, they've been used consistently to fill in the gaps of Queen's history with the island of Lian Yu, as well as his escapades that have taken place off screen. Now that those stories have been told however, they're going to be scaled back considerably.

"There are flashbacks in the first episode that take us back to the immediate aftermath of the events in the finale," Amell explained over the weekend, speaking at the Heroes and Villains Fan Fest in Nashville. "Which is one of the reasons that I had to shave my beard, so I could match up with [the finale]."

He went on to tease that throughout the sixth season, we'll see the "occasional" flashback, but not have them included in every episodes. "We're not telling a linear story anymore about Oliver's time on the island," he continued. "We've brought that one full circle."

It makes sense that we would immediately go back a little to the members of Team Arrow on Lian Yu before the island exploded. If we're to find out who's survived the blast, we'll need to know what they were doing and where they were when it happened.

Beyond that, what will be included in those occasional flashbacks is anybody's guess. There's the chance that they could help to tell the story of various other members of Team Arrow, or further develop the character of Oliver Queen in ways we haven't yet seen. Whatever the case may be, the writers on the show will be sure to maintain a high quality of storytelling.

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'Arrow' season 6 debuts in October on The CW in the US, and is expected to return to the UK on Sky1 shortly thereafter.