For the past month or so, Arrow fans have been dealing with some of the show's most jaw-dropping announcements. For one, the CW drama will be ending its run with a shortened eighth season, and two, Emily Bett Rickards will be saying goodbye to fans long before then. As such, the Season 7 finale stands to be as important an episode as any Arrow has delivered before, and both Stephen Amell and showrunner Beth Schwartz have shared their early opinions publicly.
Beth Schwartz has some big words about the finale, which is supposedly Felicity Queen's final episode, saying that the script had a way of bringing on the waterworks. In her words:
All I have to say is the finale script, almost everyone who read it was in tears. I’m very happy with it, and I think the audience is going to really like it.
If the Arrow stars were all seemingly crying about how the episode plays out, it's safe to say the reaction Beth Schwartz described to TVLine may also be the audience's natural instinct. Especially if the tears were in response to something tragic happening to one or more of the characters. I believe we all know I'm referring to Felicity's potential death here.
However, there are no guarantees that Felicity would be the finale's only victim. Because Arrow is going into its final season this fall, the writers may need to go extreme when finding ways to set up the last batch of episodes. What if every current-timeline character who hasn't been seen in the flash-forwards gets killed off by the time Season 7 concludes? That would be...calamitous, to say the least.
Stephen Amell's Oliver Queen does need as many Team Arrow members as possible to take down an enemy he didn't even know he had: his sister Emiko Queen. (Along with Dante and the rest of the Ninth Circle.) As such, Arrow may not completely deplete his protagonist arsenal, at least not before he presumably gets revenge for whatever happens to Felicity.
In case anyone wondered what Stephen Amell has had to say about the Season 7 finale, he doesn't seem to be living a life of peace and easygoing thought processes. Here's how he was feeling about things recently.
Our Season Finale is slowly sucking the life out of me. (In the best possible way.)
Amell also had a far more physical reaction to the way Season 7 temporarily concludes the characters' stories. He got chills, and they were multiplying. (The word is still out on whether he's losing his self-control or not.)
What could it be that's giving Stephen Amell goosebumps aplenty and (positively) sucking his life away? The easiest guess is the one we'e already discussed, in which something awful happens to Felicity. But things might not be so fatal, even if they remain as emotional, if Felicity takes William away from the dangers of Star City. Fans know that he'll eventually return, as seen in the spinoff-setting flash-forwards, but much about his life is still unknown.
One thing is for sure, though. Arrow's Katherine McNamara couldn't look more happy to have been with her co-stars in celebrating the season finale's wrap party. Amell looks insanely happy himself, so here's hoping the party helped save everyone's moods.
Arrow's next installment will be the highly anticipated Birds of Prey episode, which will turn the central premises on its head. Instead of Caity Lotz's White Canary teaming up with Juliana Harkavy's Black Canary and Katie Cassidy Rodgers' Black Siren, the three morally wavering women will actually be facing each other after Laurel gets exposed as Black Siren. Will that episode have any long-lasting consequences?
There are only four more episodes of Arrow after "Lost Canary," so there's not much time left at all for fans to spend with Emily Bett Rickards' Felicity and any of the other characters who may also be bowing out ahead of Season 8. Be sure to tune in when Arrow returns to The CW on Monday, April 15, at 9:00 p.m. ET.
