Arrow Finale: A Perfect End to an Imperfect Series

An eight year journey comes to a close with this episode and the episode itself has a beautiful symmetry about it. We look back at moments in the show’s past, to early talks with John Diggle on the morality of vigilantism and Oliver’s ever evolving mission and ethos. But the episode also very pointedly looks to the future of the Arrowverse, setting up characters in this series to carry on in potential future roles. Arrow, through much of its run, functioned narratively on flashbacks interspersed with present day dilemmas. In the final two seasons, these flashbacks melted away, yielding to a series of flash-forwards. In our final episode, the flashbacks return and remind the viewer of the show’s humble beginnings.

Eight years ago, the landscape of comics-related media wasn’t quite as bright or prevalent as it is today but there was something in the air. Avengers landed in theaters that year, as did Dark Knight Rises. Both films were capstones to narrative arcs at the dawn of the modern era of comics media and both were box office smashes. There was The Walking Dead on AMC and myriad of animated series but the television market for comics properties and superheroes in particular remained bleak. Then, Arrow arrived. Much like Smallville before it, it began formulaic but there was just something about the show that gestured towards something bigger. Something legendary.

The show had its ups and downs, as with any long running television program. There were entire seasons worth of questionable choices, both by the characters and the creative team. But still, Arrow pushed forward, expanding the universe like some sort of Big Bang. Countless other shows followed but Arrow, through all of its faults, would remain a forerunner in a new era of comics television.

Saying farewell to such a show is no easy matter and is made more complicated by the sheer vastness of characters that cycled in and out of the series over the eight seasons. This finale saw a great many of those characters return, from Ragman to Moira Queen, thanks in part to the changes made during the final moments of Crisis. Moira, Quentin Lance, and Tommy Merlin all returned from the dead and “Flashpoint’s” changes to the Diggle family repaired, these changes to the long history of the show seem both illogical but at the same time quite welcome. Nobody that appeared in this episode felt out of place, as we see Thea and Roy reunite (and get engaged) or Tommy flirt with Laurel Lance. Instead, the ending felt seamlessly organic throughout.

“The mission is never over”, quoth Diggle of Oliver Queen. While this episode served as a definitive ending to the show Arrow, there were clear marks that these characters are not meant to sit on the shelf. After years of fan theories projecting John Diggle as John Stewart, Diggle finally gets his Green Lantern ring just as he and his family are preparing to move to Metropolis. Dinah is also headed to Metropolis, which is now firmly on Earth Prime. With no shows currently centered in Metropolis, it remains to be seen when/if these characters resurface but the seed is certainly there.

So we come to the ending that isn’t an ending but truly a new beginning. Many thanks to the countless people who brought Arrow to life over the years and forever altered the landscape of the television superhero.