Find Out When Colton Haynes Returns to Arrow!

The CW's Arrow threw us a curveball last week when Colton Haynes, who plays Roy Harper, left the series as his character faked his own death and left Starling City after taking the fall for Oliver Queen (Stephen Amell) as the Arrow.

But there's good news: Haynes will be back this season!

"I don't have a huge hunger to keep it secret from you guys," showrunner  Marc Guggenheim told E! News and other reporters about Haynes' upcoming return to the show. "Suffice it to say, I think the big thing that we felt we owed the audience more than anything was some closure with Thea [Willa Holland], because obviously the circumstances under which Thea is in episode 3.20—she was too busy getting 'killed' by Ra's [Matt Nable] to say goodbye to Roy."

As you may have gathered by the quotes around "killed" in Guggenheim's remarks, Thea/Willa Holland isn't going anywhere, either. And the absence of a proper goodbye between the two will ultimately bring Roy back.

"In the writers room, I always talk in terms of dangling plot lines are like bills we still have to pay," Guggenheim said. "Certainly we owed the audience some closure for this three season long love story between these two characters."

Expect Haynes back in Episode 22, which airs on May 6.

But why did the show lose Haynes in the first place?

"When Colton came on board the show as recurring in season one, he had just come off of Teen Wolf, and he wasn't sure he wanted to do another series," Guggenheim said. "It was like, 'Come over to Arrow and play with us for a little bit and if it's working out for you then we can talk about making you like a regular.' We've taken this approach actually with other actors in the past before if they're not quite sure if they want to commit to a series or not."

"Colton did come on board and did have a good time and we made a two year deal with him," he continued. "It wasn't like Susanna [Thompson, who played Moira] last year or Colin [Donnell, who played Tommy] the year before. We always knew we would have Colton for years two and three, so we started the year off with this end game in mind. We knew in large portion at the beginning of the year how we were going to pull it off."

The showrunners are understandbly excited to see what Haynes does after Arrow, but they always hope that he will return to Starling City at some point.

"Certainly, I don't want to say we tried to convince him [to stay] and he turned us down," Guggenheim said. "He's got a big movie coming out, he's got a huge career ahead of him. For us, it was more of a conversation of how do we continue to go forward. There's a reason why we didn't kill off Roy. We want Roy Harper and Arsenal to remain in this universe that we're creating and Colton was completely game for that."

So have hope, Haynes/Roy/Arsenal fans!

"I can't make an announcement and promise in episodes 4, 5, and 6 of season four he'll be on Arrow, but the relationship is still there and his desire to continue to play the character is still there and those are the two things you need [for him to return in the future]," Guggenheim said.

What do you make of Guggenheim's remarks? Let us know in the comments section.