'Arrow' Season 8 Episode 4: Oliver Queen's emotional reunion with his children has fans ugly crying

All frustrations with the flash-forwards seem to have been forgiven. As the introduction to the show keeps reminding us, Oliver Queen (Stephen Amell) left his family to help the Monitor avert the coming Crisis. In this episode, he faces the consequences of that decision and gets a chance to connect with his children, all grown up, in the most emotionally heavy episode of the season so far. 

While Oliver’s children aren’t the only ones to have returned from the future, their interactions with their father are certainly gathering the most attention from the fans. One of the most powerful scenes of the episode sees William(Ben Lewis) tell Oliver what kind of person he’s become, coming out to Oliver in the process as an out and proud gay man. “This episode of Arrow has gotten me with all the feels. I personally never got into the Flash forward stories but damn this meeting had me bawling especially @benlewishere’s coming out to his TV dad,” says one Twitter user. 

“This moment right here. After all that angst and pain and heartache, this moment right here made me bawl like a baby,” says another, referring to a moment when Oliver and his two future kids share a late-night grilled cheese sandwich. “Bringing these kids into the future was the best thing this show could have done for Oliver’s story,” one user opines.

With recent announcements about the ‘Green Arrow and the Canaries’ spinoff, people couldn’t help but notice all the quick references to its creation. “My favorite part about the episode... the spin-off is getting that subtle set-up!” notes a Twitter user, including an image from the episode of Mia Smoak(Kate McNamara) and both of Arrow’s Black Canaries. “With all these interactions between Laurel/Dinah/Mia, this episode has made me EVEN MORE excited for the spin off,” says a tweet. 

The kids from the future are still in the present at the end of the episode, with no clear way back to their own time, which means more interactions between Future Team Arrow and Original Team Arrow are still to come.

The next episode of ‘Arrow’ airs November 19, on the CW.