Spoiler alert, believe it or not, for the show Sons of Anarchy, in case there are any Arrow fans who haven't finished that series.
Not all shows out there have a super-specific gameplan in mind when it comes to their fifth seasons; those that are lucky enough to make it that far, of course. Arrow, however, has always had 5 as the magic number connecting the flashbacks to Oliver's story in the present day. It remains unclear if this will also be the current mayor's final year as TV's greenest vigilante, and it's even more unclear how Oliver will fare when that last episode comes. And when asked if the hero's dark deeds will provide any fatal karma, Arrow executive producer Marc Guggenheim offered up quite the ominous answer.
There's an element of this show that's very Sons of Anarchy to me, which had a similar question: Was there any redemption to be had for Jackson? I will say that I have a very specific notion as to how I would like to see the series end.
Had Marc Guggenheim offered up those two sentences several minutes apart to EW, instead of seemingly one after the other, then perhaps I could go the rest of the day without feeling as if Oliver Queen is going to meet his maker before the credits roll on Arrow's final episode. Because - and you were warned - Sons of Anarchy's main protagonist (of sorts) Jax Teller made the enormous decision to go out in a blaze of glory after inciting a giant police chase. For much of that show's run, he was weighed down with all the terrible decisions he and his family had made in the past, and after fixing up what he could, he exited life via a truck's grille.
In no way should anyone expect this scenario to be mirrored by Oliver or the Arrow creative team, since Oliver and Jax are not at all the same kind of people. (Outside of the fact that both are played by actors whose abs make fans melt.) In going from affluent playboy to justice-delivering hero, Oliver has indeed done a lot of things that could land him in a jail cell opposite the ones where Jax spent some uncomfortable nights, but there's a completely different mindset and sense of purpose behind the actions of Star City's guardian. His livelihood isn't fueled by the crime he tries to stop, so I don't think anyone has to worry about Oliver's guilt driving him over the edge to some form of suicide.
However, that doesn't mean that Oliver Queen is destined to be the Green Arrow for decades to come, as he could end up dying in far different ways. There have already been lots of town-destroying bombs at play in Arrow, but maybe one day he'll have to throw himself on a grenade to save Felicity or Thea or any number of other Star City citizens/heroes. (That's mildly close to how he went out in the comics before being resurrected.) Or he gets zapped with a lot of cancerous radiation as a means of stopping a bigger disaster. Or he takes a hatchet to the face when Star City is eventually overrun by zombies and Rick Grimes' crew. That probably won't happen for different reasons. Knowing how connected everything has been for Season 5, with main villain Prometheus using elements of Oliver's past in his reign of chaos, I would have to assume that Oliver's possible death would be exorbitantly meaningful in several different ways.
If Legends of Tomorrow's timeline - one of them - is canon, though, then at least one version of Oliver Queen definitely won't die during the TV run of Arrow, unless it would run for another couple of decades. Last year, the Legends took a trip to 2046, where a bearded and one-armed Oliver was still alive, and Conner Hawke was his successor as the Green Arrow. But Arrow is in the post-Flashpoint timeline now, so rules schmules.
Arrow Season 5 airs Wednesday nights on The CW. Head to our fall schedule and our midseason schedule to see what else the small screen has to offer in the near future.
