Arrow

With the new and final season of ‘Arrow’ (not to mention the rest of the CW Arrowverse series’) just around the corner, fans are starting to gear up for the end, the first question on their minds being where will the series pick things up when they return. When we last saw Oliver Queen, the Monitor came to collect him for his destiny, forcing him to leave Felicity and his child behind, and apparently, the premiere will take place not long after that. According to Executive Producer Beth Schwartz:

“We pick up a week later.”

Which means the final season is going to have a lot of momentum I think, and not leave too much downtime for Oliver Queen and his allies, especially since I cannot imagine he will be taking down any petty criminals when he has to prepare for the Anti-Monitor. I have no idea what Oliver will be up to in the build-up toward the ‘Crisis on Infinite Earths,’ but star Stephen Amell did share some insights.

Amell spoke of the final season looking back and paying homage to previous seasons, stating:

“Episode 1 is an ode to season 1, and episode 2 is an ode to season 3. We’re playing our greatest hits.”

The website ComicBook.com was fortunate enough to sit down with consulting producer Marc Guggenheim in recent weeks and discuss the upcoming final season, where he shared his thoughts on the challenges of ending a long-running series:

“The good news is unlike Game of Thrones or unlike Lost, were not burdened with having to answer a question. We’re not burdened with ‘who’s going to sit on the Iron Throne?’ or “what was the island?’ so we get to do, I think, a much more character-based ending. So, at the same time, the complication for us is that we also have “Crisis” and I think a lot of the stuff that was always in my head in terms of how to end the show we’re now actually going to end up doing in the crossover instead so it’s like now what does the series finale become? But, you know, we’ve got plans…I’m really excited about it. The goal is to make it satisfying for the fans, but the good news for us is we don’t have the challenges that Lost or Game of Thrones had,” he continued. We also don’t have the ratings, so there’s that, too. But I feel the pain of Damon, Benioff, and Weiss. It’s hard. It’s a hard thing to do in a way that satisfies everyone. I also think, because I’ve been thinking how does one end a series, there’s what the initial reaction to something is and then there’s how it stands the test of time and those two things are not always the same.”

Do you have any theories about how the final season of ‘Arrow’ is going to run or what Oliver and the Monitor will be doing for those 10 episodes? Are you sad to see ‘Arrow’ finally coming to a close? Feel free to share any thoughts and theories you might have in the comments below!