The eighth and final season of “Arrow” is returning on Tuesday, October 15. It’s a bittersweet feeling, and it’s the end of an era. The final season is only 10 episodes, and you can only imagine how jam-packed it’ll be as we wrap up Oliver Queen’s (Stephen Amell) journey as the Green Arrow.
It’s not only been a journey for Oliver Queen but also for the other characters as well. We say goodbye to Diggle (David Ramsey), Rene (Rick Gonzalez), Black Siren (Katie Cassidy), Dinah Drake (Juliana Harkavy) and more. Season seven ended with Oliver working to end Emiko’s terrorist attack on the city and, before she died in battle, she tells Oliver to leave the city to go into hiding to protect their daughter from the wrath of the Ninth Circle. The finale ends with a heart-wrenching goodbye from Oliver to his family when The Monitor (LaMonica Garrett) shows up to remind him of the deal he made to save Barry and Kara to save the multiverse.
Now, with less than two weeks left to wait, it will all come full circle. Or at least we hope.
To prepare, here are five things we know about “Arrow” season eight and what we can expect!
We’ll be seeing a lot of old characters from the past reappear. Yes, even the ones that have passed away.
One thing we know for sure is that Oliver Queen has lost a lot of people in his life, where you can feel the void of someone missing during his big moments throughout the show. The cast refers to the final season as “the greatest hits” of “Arrow.” We’ll be seeing past and recurring characters again one last time. We have official word of Tommy Merlyn (Colin Donnell), Malcolm Meryln (John Barrowman), Adrian Chase (Josh Segarra), Moira Queen (Susana Thompson) and Thea Queen (Willa Holland) returning, and there may be more making an appearance that we’ve only seen briefly or during a season arc before.
We also know that Colton Haynes will be returning for the final season as confirmed on Twitter.
Felicity Smoak will not be appearing in the final season.
We had to say goodbye to Felicity Smoak last season, as Emily Bett Richards exited the show. She will be missed by many, especially the cast, crew and fans of the show. Felicity Smoak has played such an integral part of the show: a character that was only meant to appear in the series as a guest star, but due to her superb chemistry with Oliver Queen on-screen, she was promoted to series regular in an instant. She grew to be a character whom we loved and had the personality and drive that resonated with a lot of women, especially how fiercely she stood her ground and represented how badass women in tech are.
For now, there is no word of her appearing in the final season. But who knows? They may surprise us for the series finale.
The eighth episode of Arrow will be the crossover episode.
As all DCTV shows close the first half of their seasons in November/December, “Arrow,” “The Flash,” “Supergirl” and “Legends of Tomorrow” commence for a week-long crossover event with characters from each show joining forces together to defeat their new big bad. It’s adventurous and all kinds of fun, but last year’s crossover hinted of the biggest one that’s yet to come, which is well on its way now. The Crisis of Infinite Earth is the crossover that closes the book on Oliver Queen’s legacy.
We know that the annual crossover event will be separated, with half the episodes airing in December 2019 and the other half airing in January 2020. Which means “Arrow”’s episode of the crossover will be the eighth episode of its final season, and that will be airing during the second half of the crossover on Tuesday, January 14. We’ve got the most anticipated return for this crossover, as Tom Welling is set to reprise his “Smallville” role as Clart Kent!
The fate of Oliver is sealed: He will die in Crisis on Infinite Earths.
It’s a hard pill to swallow, and it’s going to be emotional, that’s for sure. We learn that Oliver made this tough sacrifice in the season seven finale, as we see him bid farewell to Felicity and Mia in his home when The Monitor appears to take him for the Crisis.
We will have two more episodes after the crossover, so hopefully we won’t have to say goodbye to Oliver completely until the series finale.
Episode nine will introduce us to the new spinoff.
It was recently announced that we will be getting an “Arrow” spinoff with the leading ladies of the show. A spinoff centered around Black Siren (Katie Cassidy), Dinah Drake (Juliana Harkavy) and Oliver’s daughter, Mia Smoak (Katherine McNamara) is in the works. Oliver won’t leave his daughter hanging like that, so we will have an episode as to how his daughter will continue on with his legacy. I have no doubt that these leading ladies of “Arrow” won’t disappoint! I think it’ll be an exciting one.
Are you looking forward to the final season of “Arrow”? Share your thoughts with us. Season eight of “Arrow” returns Tuesday, October 15, at 9/8c on The CW.
Follow Shuffle Online on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook.
Love our work? Buy us a coffee on Ko-Fi!
Featured photo credit: JSquared Photography/The CW
Shadia Omer is an entertainment writer, pop-culture enthusiast, and an aspiring TV writer. She’s based in San Diego, CA but will always rep being from Houston, TX instead. She watches way too much TV for her own good. With her passion for the TV/entertainment industry, Shadia is working to change the American-Muslim narratives on TV, pushing for authentic and inclusion representation in the media. When she’s not writing, obsessing over her love for pizza and traveling, you can find her on Twitter tweeting about her favorite shows one tweet at a time.