The premiere of Arrow‘s final season is just around the corner! There is very little time left before our last season premiere. Before season 8 starts, we wanted to discuss the 5 things we most want to see in the season to come. It’s been difficult to choose just five, because there is too much we want to see, but five is a good start.
And this also gives me a chance to introduce myself, because I will be here every week with you, during this final season of Arrow! I love this show (even with its flaws), and I will enjoy discussing everything with you. But first … let’s make our predictions for the final season!
Here we go!
FELICITY’S RETURN
It is obvious that this was going to be our first hope and what we most want to happen in season 8. Felicity Smoak is an integral part of Arrow. So much so, that even the protagonists themselves have recognized that the show as we know it basically ended with her departure. But all the characters that were once important in the show are returning, so it’s not silly to think that Felicity could be one of them.
It may only be for the final episode … but it is clear that the producers and actors want her return to give a better closure to both the character, and the story. I think Emily is also willing to figure out her agenda. And, honestly, fans are dreaming that one day they will confirm her participation in the last season.
There is no doubt that her departure from the show was a blow to the fans and the audience … but her return can be the good news we’ve all been waiting for.
For my part, I think we haven’t seen the latest from Felicity Smoak or Olicity in the show. In my mind, they can’t really do this story justice, or end it as it deserves without Felicity or Olicity. What do you think? Fingers crossed!
HISTORY FOCUSED ON OTA AND NOT ON NTA
Throughout the seasons, this show has failed to focus on the core characters of the series, and has given too much prominence to unimportant, ungrateful and uninteresting characters (see NTA).
In this season, after Emily’s departure, there are only two OTA members left: Oliver and Diggle and I really hope they focus on them both. It is time that, at least in the last hours of the show, they give OTA dynamics (although they are shaky now), and our wonderful BROTP the importance and the moments they deserve.
In addition, I want to say that the season itself should be centered as much as possible on Oliver. It is his story, his legacy, his end. Enough of focusing on characters that only make us want to sleep or roll our eyes. And by this I mean NTA (New Team of Assholes, as a colleague of mine recently baptized them) and Laurel Lance.
STAR CITY 2040 FOCUSED ON MIA AND WILLIAM
The history of Star City 2040 has a million possibilities, so much so that its spin off is an open secret. However, in the previous season on many occasions this story was diluted precisely because of the mistake we mentioned earlier: focusing too much on bland characters that do not interest us. We hope that this last season really serves to give us the great moments that we are waiting for from this story (ahem a moment between Oliver and his children wink, wink), as well as to definitely launch the spin off.
But for this story to work they must focus on the stories that have potential, that means Mia, William, Connor and JJ and, at the same time, that must link everything to what we see in the present … and at some point have present time and future intermingle, making possible a meeting of Oliver with his children. I’m already crying and screaming just imaginging it. And if the whole Smoak – Queen family finally got together, it would be a godsend that would leave our wigs on Mars.
RESPECT FOR THE RETURNING CHARACTERS
In this season 8 they are putting all the meat on the grill, as they say, to bring back all (or most) the characters that were important to the show, and that fans wanted to see again, but we hope that they actually do a good job with the characters that are returning.
We need the return of these characters to do justice to their own story throughout the show, and not simply be an appearance to please the fans. We need to make sure that seeing these characters again won’t spoil the good memories or the good ending they had at the time. We want it to feel like rereading a good book, that every time you read it again you create new memories, and you like it more than you did before.
PS: No zombies in the series! We don’t want more undead or resurrections. If they are going to bring the characters back, make it through another mechanism that will resurrect them. Please and thank you.
A TRUE LOVE LETTER TO THE SHOW
Too many times the producers have told us that a particular episode would be “a love letter to the show,” and then that “love letter” didn’t match with what really was important to the series. So I hope that in season 8, in the final season, they will be able to make a letter to the show, to their main characters (of course, they could not do this without Emily) and, above all, to Oliver’s story. That’s the story that has kept us hooked for so many years, that is the story they cannot fail, because they owe it absolutely everything.
In that sense, it is time to make it very clear that Arrow was the one who started it all, as far as the other series are concerned. It is the mother series, and if not for this show, every show who came after it (The Flash, Supergirl, Legends of Tomorrow, Batwoman …) would not exist. It is time for that to be said louder for the people in the back, and for everyone to recognize that this fact deserves respect.
Enough of criticizing Oliver in other series! #RespectOliverQueen2k19
BONUS: A HAPPY ENDING
This year marks 8 years since the premiere of Arrow. It has been 8 years of tears, of suffering, of happiness, of walking a path that was sometimes too long, winding and arduous. It has been 8 years of accompanying a man tortured psychologically and physically to see him become a hero, believe that he deserves to be happy and fight for his happiness and his family with teeth and nails. That man doesn’t deserve to end up having lost everything.
That man deserves to be recognized by everyone as what he is: a hero. He deserves to live happily ever after with the love of his life and his children, he deserves to see them grow, to see them become heroes in their own way, he deserves to see them follow in his footsteps and those of their mother. He deserves to grow old with the love of his life.
Oliver Queen deserves happiness with his love Felicity, his children Mia and William and his brother Diggle. Oliver Queen deserves to be happy with his family and all his loved ones, and that is what I hope (and want) to see in 8×10.
For me, if the series doesn’t end with a happy ending they will not have done justice to the story that began in the pilot.
In recent times, it seems that the series producers think that a dramatic ending will mark a before and after, and that will make people remember the show. In short, they think it will be a good ending. I think they are wrong. A good ending means doing justice to the history of the series and its logical development. Arrow has always been about a dark man who believed he should pay for his father’s sins and his own, who thinks he didn’t deserve to be happy because he was a murderer. The logical conclusion to that story is that Oliver will end his journey as someone who is recognized as a hero, who sees himself as such and who has managed to be happy and knows that he deserves that happiness. I think that’s what we’ll see, and I hope I’m not mistaken.
Agree? Disagree? What do you expect from this new season? Don’t hesitate to discuss everything with us in the comments below!
Arrow returns on October 15 on The CW at 9 pm.