Oliver's final 'Arrow' season 8 mission may be farewell tour far closer to home than 'Crisis on Infinite Earths'
When it was first announced that ‘Arrow’ would be winding up after Season 8, speculations began to run rife that the final season would be dedicated to setting up the upcoming ‘Crisis on Infinite Earths’ crossover but new information suggests this might not be the case. It now seems the season will actually be focusing on how Oliver Queen/Green Arrow (Stephen Amell) will come to terms with the prophecy made by the Monitor (LaMonica Garrett) that his life will soon be ending.
‘Arrow’ executive producer Marc Guggenheim has revealed the final season was planned much before ‘Crisis’ was announced. His statement makes it quite likely that we will not, in fact, be seeing as much of Oliver's journey across the multiverse as was initially believed.
“We didn’t know that we were going to be doing ‘Crisis’ in Season 8,” Guggenheim told TVLine. “And one thing I would love to clear up is this misconception I’ve read online that ‘Crisis’ artificially extended Arrow’s life span, that the only reason we did a Season 8 of Arrow was to set up ‘Crisis.’ That’s just patently untrue.”
“Trust me — networks do not do additional episodes of anything just for one event,” he added. “But let me put it even more succinctly: Even if we weren’t doing ‘Crisis on Infinite Earths’ in Season 8, we’d still be doing a Season 8.”
The idea that Season 8 would see the Emerald Archer going universe-hopping first came up after the Season 7 finale hinted the time has come for Oliver to repay his debt to the Monitor. Amell added further fuel to the fire by hinting that there would be multiple Olivers appearing during the crossover.
“I’m going to play more than one character in the crossover,” Amell said. “They’re all named Oliver.” Based on what Guggenheim has revealed, we can assume that the majority of Season 8 will take place on Earth-1 itself with tie-ins to ‘Crisis’ only appearing towards the end of the season.
Oliver’s final mission, which was hinted at in the trailer, will probably be something far more personal, probably bringing down the mysterious organization known as the Ninth Circle that was introduced in Season 7.
Judging by the fact that the show is bringing back a lot of familiar faces from past seasons, we can probably assume Oliver will be embarking on a “farewell tour” of sorts while also trying to train his successor. After all, what else can you do when you’ve been told by an almighty cosmic being that you’re going to die by the end of the year?
The cast for ‘Arrow’ Season 8 includes Stephen Amell as Oliver Queen, Echo Kellum as Curtis Holt, David Ramsay as John Diggle, Rick Gonzalez as Rene Ramirez/Wild Dog, Juliana Harkavy as Dinah Drake, Kirk Acevedo as Ricardo Diaz, Katie Cassidy as Laurel Lance, Joseph David-Jones as Connor Hawke, Katherine McNamara as Mia Smoak and Charlie Barnett as John Diggle Jr.
Rila Fukushima, Josh Segarra, Colin Donnell, John Barrowman and Susanna Thompson will also be appearing in the final season, reprising their roles as Katana, Prometheus, Tommy Merlyn, Malcolm Merlyn and Moira Queen respectively.
‘Arrow’ Season 8 will begin airing on The CW October 15.