Oliver Queen will be hanging up his bow this fall.
Arrow, the show that started The CW’s Arrowverse that includes The Flash, Supergirl, and Legends of Tomorrow, will return for its eighth and final season this fall on The CW, Stephen Amell announced on his Twitter.
Playing Oliver Queen has been the greatest professional experience of my life… but you can’t be a vigilante forever.
Arrow will return for a final run of 10 episodes this Fall.
There’s so much to say… for now I just want to say thank you.
— Stephen Amell (@StephenAmell) March 6, 2019
Executive producers Greg Berlanti, Marc Guggenheim, and Beth Schwartz released the following statement:
“This was a difficult decision to come to, but like every hard decision we’ve made for the past seven years, it was with the best interests of Arrow in mind. We’re heartened by the fact that Arrow has birthed an entire universe of shows that will continue on for many years to come. We’re excited about crafting a conclusion that honors the show, its characters and its legacy and are grateful to all the writers, producers, actors, and — more importantly — the incredible crew that has sustained us and the show for over seven years.”
It’s no secret that Arrow has been in decline since its prime — peak seasons 2-4 — but you can’t help but wonder if the end comes courtesy of contract negotiations. Stephen Amell’s contract runs through 2019, and you can’t have Arrow without, well, the Green Arrow.
With next year’s crossover set to cover Crisis on Infinite Earths, which was a game-changer in the comics, this feels like the perfect opportunity to fix the mess that has been done to Arrow. While Arrow‘s impending end is bittersweet, let’s make one thing perfectly clear:
Oliver Queen better get his happy ending at the end of this. Oliver better get to go live happily ever after with his beautiful wife, Felicity and their two children. Or so help me…
For real. How could you not give Oliver a happy ending? If there’s one character that deserves a happy ending, it’s Oliver Queen.
Right now, the future seems bleak. And that’s exactly what this show wants us to believe. They want us to believe that in the future Oliver is dead. They want us to believe that Oliver didn’t get to raise both of his children, including his young daughter. They want us to believe there’s no hope. What other reason would you do that if not to give resolution?
Oliver Queen better get his happy ending. Or we riot.
Arrow airs Mondays at 8/7c on The CW.