The heroes of the Arrowverse have had plenty of brushes with the law over the years (heck, Barry Allen even did jail time for murder on The Flash), but none of them have sacrificed their secret identities the way Oliver Queen did last season on Arrow, admitting his role as the Green Arrow and handing himself over to the FBI in an attempt to stop Ricardo Diaz from taking control of Star City. Unfortunately for Oliver, Diaz escaped, living to scheme another day, while our hero is now behind bars.

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For a superhero show, it's a bold, game-changing choice, and one that has proved both challenging and rewarding for star Stephen Amell, who has now been portraying Oliver Queen for the better part of a decade."Normally I have a really good overall view of the season; the interesting thing thus far this season is, I had a scene [recently] and it was the first time that I had worked with a series regular in months, because Oliver’s very isolated in prison, obviously," he revealed when speaking to IGN about the upcoming season. "The prison stuff, it’s really gritty. And we beat Oliver down. There’s one episode where I spend the entire episode in one room. That’s it, and it was just two straight days of super, super interesting and intense stuff that I don’t think we’ve really done on the show. We’ve never taken a character and isolated him and examined him psychologically the way we have this year with Oliver ... So that sort of examination has been a really interesting exercise for me."As part of IGN First, we're exclusively debuting six new photos from the upcoming season that illustrate just what Oliver's dealing with in prison in Season 7. Check them out in the gallery below.Fans will recognize returning stars Cody Runnels (aka pro wrestler Cody Rhodes) as Derek Sampson, Michael Jai White as Ben Turner (aka Bronze Tiger), and Vinnie Jones as Danny "Brick" Brickwell in the new images, and needless to say, Oliver isn't their favorite person."He’s in prison with a bunch of people that he basically put there. And I would say that Brick is kind of the ringleader of the group. But the things that Oliver discovers about some of the prisoners, I think are a little bit unexpected for the first part of the season," Amell teased. "And there’s a couple of interesting employees in the prison, and there’s also an inmate that I don’t think Oliver ever thought he would see again."Not everyone is out to beat the snot out of Oliver, however - some might see him as an ally; one of our photos sees Oliver standing beside an inmate named Stanley (Brendan Fletcher), with both of them looking a little worse for wear."Stanley and Oliver have a relationship where, when he first gets in there, he seeks out Oliver for help and for protection," Amell previewed. "And there's a very, very interesting scene, where Brick and his whole crew use Stanley as leverage against Oliver. And especially in the first episode, it really illustrates how far Oliver’s fallen, and how he’s had to cope with being in prison."While fans might expect Oliver to try and establish himself as the Alpha dog in the yard to avoid becoming a target, Amell explained that he's mostly trying to "just keep his head down, and not to get into trouble. The viewers don’t know exactly how long Oliver’s sentence was for, but the finale of the previous season was called 'Life Sentence.' But there’s still an inkling that, with good behavior and with keeping your head down, maybe there’s an opportunity for him to eventually get out. So it’s strange, he’s struggling a ton with trying not to be the hero."That doesn't mean we'll be deprived of fight scenes, though - if anything, Amell said, it feels like "things have ramped up. We have a fight scene in the first episode that, it’s actually dueling fight scenes, and it’s one of our best stunt achievements, I think. It was me for almost thirteen hours, just non-stop fighting. And it was amazing, and we couldn’t use a stunt double for it. We’ve only had that a couple of times in the history of the show. I like to do a lot of my own stunts, but in this instance, we physically could not have a double, and it was really something."(The CW has released a sneak peek at the fight scene in question, which gives a pretty clear indication of why it was so labor-intensive.)And while Oliver arguably has the skills to get himself out of prison if he needs to, he's playing by the rules for a reason, according to Amell: "One of the things that I chatted with the writers about is, we have to make sure there’s an anchor to keep Oliver in prison. That’s something that I’ve thought a lot about. Because he’s in there for three reasons: He’s in there to keep Felicity and William safe. He’s in there to give his friends immunity. And he’s in there because that means that the FBI and A.R.G.U.S. are gonna track Diaz. So, if all three of those things go away, he would just break out. And that’s something that we talk about all the time. So, he’s aware that Diaz is still out there, but he’s also having trouble being convinced that Felicity and William are safe. He’s having recurring nightmares about Diaz finding them, and obviously doing what Diaz would do."Previously released photos from the Season 7 premiere see Oliver and Felicity together in the episode, but it's likely the first time that the two have seen each other in months."I personally don’t think that Oliver’s seen Felicity since he’s gone to prison, because she’s in witness protection, and that’s sort of the main reason why Diggle is visiting on a regular basis - because he’s updating them, 'how they’re doing, are they safe, what’s going on?'" Amell explained. "But obviously Oliver and Felicity come face to face in the premiere. And Emily [Bett Rickards] and I were joking about it, because our last scene that we shot last year is the scene where I tell her that I’m going to prison, and then I say goodbye to William. And then this scene, in the premiere, it’s sort of the same scene, insofar as it’s really, really emotional, and Emily and I were laughing afterwards, like, 'can’t we just have a scene where they’re sitting around drinking coffee, and talking about their day, and not having to have these super emotional, tiring scenes?'"On the outside, the rest of Team Arrow has to deal with Oliver's choice in their own ways. "Diaz is off the board... he’s been in hiding for five months. But no one on the team is suiting up and doing the vigilante thing because obviously that would jeopardize what Oliver sacrificed for them," Amell said. "But we are introduced to a new vigilante crew, a new Green Arrow, and when Beth [Schwartz, the new showrunner] explained to me what the idea was, I was really excited, because it was nothing I ever anticipated."Season 7 will also bring back Colton Haynes as Roy Harper, whose return is still shrouded in mystery. "I can’t give you a single thing," Amell laughed. "I can say stuff, but the really cool thing is that I could give you like a hundred guesses, and I don’t think that you would get it. We find him in a spot that you would never expect to find him, talking to a character that you’ve never seen before, but is incredibly familiar."The synopsis for the new season also warns that "Oliver will find himself vulnerable in a way unlike ever before when a mysterious new enemy begins to unravel his work as Green Arrow, challenging him to redeem his name or risk losing everything." Naturally, Amell declined to elaborate on that tantalizing tease, only hinting that "the final scene of the Season 7 premiere is a scene that, really, I don’t think anyone will anticipate. I think it’s very, very, very exciting."We'll find out why when Arrow returns for its Season 7 premiere on Monday, October 15 at 8 p.m. on The CW.