Welcome to Geek Girl Authority’s Into the Arrowverse. This is a special edition of this column as we say farewell to the Arrowverse flagshow, Arrow. This will be the final recap of the Arrow series for GGA.
Arrow debuted on the CW in the Fall 2012. For eight seasons, Oliver Queen (Stephen Amell) and Team Arrow have led the multiverse of heroes defending the worlds from a plethora of villains. We, as an audience shared in Oliver’s triumphs, his failures, redemption and love. Arrow left a mark on the DC world of heroes that will be felt long after the series finale. And left some hope of future reunions. All images and videos courtesy of The CW.
Fadeout (S08 E10)
As we’ve been seeing throughout the Arrowverse, Oliver’s sacrifice changed a few things for our heroes. For Oliver, he changed history by saving his mother, Moira Queen (Susanna Thompson). The night Slade Wilson (Manu Bennett) took Moira, Thea (Willa Holland), and Oliver hostage, Moira volunteered to die for her children. This time, Oliver had a knife in his pocket. He was able to cut his bonds and attack Slade before he could kill Moira.
Saving his mother is a given. In his sacrifice, Oliver also saved Quentin Lance (Paul Blackthorne), Tommy Merlyn (Colin Donnell), and Emiko Queen (Sea Shimooka). He probably changed their fates somehow as well.
John Diggle (David Ramsey), Rene Ramirez (Rick Gonzalez), and Dinah Drake (Juliana Harkavy) are the only remaining members of Team Arrow and have already made plans to move on. Mayor Quentin Lance offered to endorse Rene as the next mayor of Star City. He also offered Dinah an opportunity to be Chief of Police.
Roy Harper (Colton Haynes) and Earth-2 Laurel Lance (Katie Cassidy) are at the bunker chatting about Oliver. Diggle is having a hard time accepting that he’s really gone. Through flashbacks we remember a time when Oliver didn’t trust Diggle and Diggle was very worried about Oliver’s soul.
Oliver was crossing names off his list of people who failed Star City. He came across the name John Byrne (Johnny Cuthbert). Byrne was using his beer trucks for human trafficking. Diggle tried to talk Oliver into not killing the man, but that’s not the mission. In this particular situation, Oliver heard Diggle and sent Byrne to jail.
Oliver’s funeral is coming up and past members of Team Arrow gather at the bunker. Ragman Rory Regan (Joe Dinicol), Mr. Terrific Curtis Holt (Echo Kellum), and Legend captain White Canary Sara Lance (Caity Lotz). Sara also brought Mia Queen (Katherine McNamara) from 2040. They are only missing Felicity (Emily Bett Rickards), but John isn’t sure that she’s coming.
Adult Mia doesn’t mention the events that took place in last week’s episode. She doesn’t warn Dinah that she will be transported to the future or to Laurel that they will team up to save her friend’s life. She does tell Dinah about future William’s (Ben Lewis) kidnapping and how she feels helpless. Dinah gives her encouraging words and says Oliver would be proud of Mia.
One interesting thing that does happen is Roy gives Dinah a tattoo on her wrist. The Mark of 4. That’s interesting because the Mark of 4 is also printed on the arrowhead that William carries around. And Mia saw it on the wrist of the kidnapper last week, but she doesn’t notice it on Dinah.
Roy is nervous about seeing Thea. He didn’t actually tell her he was leaving. So of course he’s afraid of what she will do or say to him when they see each other. And he realized that he’s afraid of living without her.
Of course it wouldn’t be Arrow without a mini-crisis. The group gets news that teenage William (Jack Moore) was kidnapped in Central City. This is exactly what needed to happen to bring Felicity back to the bunker. Mia is nervous to meet her and keeps her distance. The team spreads out to search for William and its Mia who finds him with John Byrne.
Byrne is upset that Oliver put him in jail all those years ago. He wants revenge for ruining his life. Mia stops Byrne from throwing William off a building. She threatens to put an arrow in Byrne and he’s okay with that. Mia changes her mind and decides to take him to jail instead.
Back at the bunker, Mia shows William the parts of her bow. Felicity realizes who she is and is afraid to meet her. When Felicity left baby Mia, she was just a teething. Now that she’s looking at adult Mia from the future, it’s too much to take.
Everyone’s emotions run high throughout the episode, especially Laurel. She confesses her guilt to Quentin, asking why Oliver would bring her back and not the good girl Laurel of Earth-1. Despite Laurel self doubts and insecurities, Quentin reassures her that there’s nothing about her that needed to be fixed.
During the search, Roy and Thea teamed up. It gave Roy an opportunity to apologize for how he left things. Thea seems indifferent, but she accepts his apology and is ready to move on. So is Roy. He proposes Thea on a rooftop. She doesn’t answer right away, in fact she waits until William is safe. Thea makes Roy promise to never run away from her again when he’s feeling weird. And of course Thea says yes to his proposal!
The heroes gather at a memorial for Oliver where Quentin reveals the Green Arrow statue. He talks about how he used to mistrust Oliver. If Oliver taught him one thing, it’s that people can change. The Arrow family gathers at the Queen mansion where Emiko, Anatoly Knyazev (David Nykl), Nyssa Al-Ghul (Katrina Law), and Talia Al-Ghul (Lexa Doig). I think this is the first time I’ve seen the Al-Ghul sisters together.
Emiko meets Thea and Moira for the first time. Tommy tells Laurel 2.0 that Laurel 1.0 was his wife…are those sparks flying? Mia introduces herself to Felicity. It’s an awkward meeting, but you can see that Felicity is just beaming about her daughter. Mia mentions that she got the same look from Oliver when he met her. That makes Felicity happy that Mia got to meet and train with her father.
The Flash Barry Allen (Grant Gustin) and Supergirl Kara Danvers (Melissa Benoist) are the last to arrive. Everyone gathers around the gravesite. They buried a casket full of mementos. No one knows what to say, so Felicity asks Diggle to say something.
“The Oliver that I met eight years ago is not the one we say goodbye to today. Oliver always told me in order to save his city he had to become someone else, something else. I always thought that mean becoming the Green Arrow but today I realize that meant becoming a better man. He took all of us with him on that journey. He brought heroes into the world, he inspired heroes, he inspired all of us here. I was his brother. And Oliver Queen was mine.”
After the funeral, Diggle, Dinah and Rene meet up at the bunker one last time. Diggle and Lyla are moving to Metropolis. So is Dinah, She turned down the Chief of Police because Star City is safe. They turn off the lights and say goodbye to the vigilante life…for now. Dinah packs up and rides off to the future on the Oliver Queen Memorial Highway.
Mia returns to the future with a look of determination on her face. As we now know, Laurel and Dinah will travel to the future and possibly start up a new Team Arrow with Mia as the Green Arrow.
As Diggle is packing up the moving van, he sees a meteor crash land in front of him. His curiosity gets the best of him and he finds a small box at the landing point. When he opens up the box, a green light shines. Something tells me we’ll see Diggle/Spartan again very soon.
And the finally, Felicity. At the end of season seven, Felicity met The Monitor Mar Novu (LaMonica Garrett) at Oliver’s gravesite. He said there is no coming back from where she is going. Felicity answered that she has waited a long time to see him.
Felicity walks through a bright portal and into the CEO office at Queen Consolidated. She finds a picture of Oliver and his dad. Oliver is standing at the door watching her. Oliver chose to meet with Felicity in his mother’s office, where he first saw her. This their afterlife, Oliver’s paradise. And they lived happily ever after.
Check out Geek Girl Authority’s Coverage of the Arrowverse Here
RELATED: Watch the Stars of CW’s Arrowverse Say Goodbye to ARROW and Stephen Amell
News Editor, Senior Contributor, and Press Editor. Coordinate breaking news, trailers and press releases. I also contribute reviews, recaps and interviews. Creator of the Indigenerd Wire, a column dedicated to the Indigenous creatives in pop culture.
GGA's resident Indigenerd, a little bit rez, a little bit classy...with a love for all things Star Wars, zombies, science fiction, and Indigenous. My ultimate goal is to start my own podcast.
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