The eighth and final season of Arrow is still months away from premiering on The CW, but executive producer Marc Guggenheim already knows how Oliver Queen's journey in the Arrow-verse is going to end. This is the show that launched an entire unique universe of shows on The CW, and it's a universe that could keep growing and honoring Arrow's legacy even after the final credits roll. So, what will the final scene of Arrow involve?
As you probably expect, Marc Guggenheim wasn't spilling the plot details to CinemaBlend and other press outlets at San Diego Comic-Con, but he did reveal how he came up with the series finale ending. Here's how he put it:
I'll tell you. I never intended to write the last scene ahead of time. Every morning I meditate, and one morning I happened to be meditating, and I came out of the meditation, and I had the entire last scene. I just had it. It was in my head. I just took it down on paper. What I would say is it just feels right. I've obviously been thinking a lot about how we end the series, and [showrunner] Beth Schwartz and I have been talking a lot about how we end the series, and in many ways this scene is almost independent of all those conversations. It's really its own sort of separate thing. In fact, in the stage direction that I wrote, it's like, 'We do whatever we do, and then we dissolve over to now, this moment.' So it kind of exists on its own terms and I hope we get to film it. I really do. I think Stephen [Amell] said, there's a few hoops we've got to jump through, hurdles we have to cross in order to make it happen. But it feels right, it feels good, and I'm a very big believer that when the muse or god hands you the whole package, you listen and you just take dictation and type it down, and that's all I did.
The final episode of Arrow hadn't yet come together when Marc Guggenheim wrote the final scene of the series, according to Guggenheim himself, and it's all thanks to that morning meditation. Based on his comments, the final scene almost sounds like more of a tag or an epilogue than anything else, if it can exist "almost independent" of whatever else could go on in the finale.
Interestingly, this makes Arrow one of now two long-running shows on The CW that are wrapping up in the 2019-2020 TV season and that have already figured out their final scenes, even if the rest of the final seasons haven't been penned just yet. The Supernatural cast seems at peace with what's happening, even if they did have some trouble with it at first; how does the Arrow team feel about the final scene?
It's more difficult to predict what could be in store for the last moments of the last episode Arrow. The finale airs after the conclusion of the "Crisis on Infinite Earths" crossover that will be the last crossover event to include the show that started it all. Some fans originally speculated that the Arrow episode of "Crisis" would be the grand finale, but that's not the case. So, whatever monumental changes happen due to "Crisis" could impact how Arrow ends, and we won't know what to expect after "Crisis" for a while.
Throw in the fact that Oliver has made his deal with The Monitor, a future-set spinoff could be launched, there's some Green Lantern mythos to be examined regarding Diggle, and Emily Bett Rickards may or may not be willing to reprise her role as Felicity Smoak, and there are a lot of questions to be answered before Arrow gets to that final scene. Marc Guggenheim's mention of a conversation with Stephen Amell at the very least suggests that Oliver will be in the final scene, so that's something!
We may have a while to wait before we find out what happens following "Crisis on Infinite Earths" and in Arrow's final arc, but we do know who will be directing the final two episodes of the series. Stunt guru and director James Bamford also spoke with CinemaBlend and others at SDCC, and he revealed that he'll be directing the ninth and tenth episodes of Arrow Season 8, on top of the season premiere. This means that the penultimate episode and the last ever episode of Arrow are in Bamford's hands.
So, naturally, James Bamford is in on what Marc Guggenheim has in mind for the final scene of the show. He said this about the series finale:
But I can truly say that our series finale is going to do it right. Marc Guggenheim, in fact, shared with me the other day. He was meditating, and he came out of this meditation, and he came up with the final scene. And he says, 'Do you want to see the final scene?' And I'm like, 'Fuck yeah, I want to see the final scene!' And so he sent it to me. He trusted me, so it's on my phone right here. There's no way I'm showing you [laughs] but it is actually on my phone in an email. And it's exactly what it should be. It's perfect. I have no idea what the rest of the episode is, but the final scene... It'll tie up all the knots.'
Alas, James Bamford did not just go right ahead and show us the final scene of the series, but all signs point toward a scene that can close out the series independent of the rest of the episode. Will it be what fans want for the last scene of what turned out to be arguably the most game-changing series in The CW's history? That remains to be seen.
A lot likely depends on what Arrow is able to accomplish in the nine episodes leading up to the finale. The show is already bringing back a bunch of past faces, including two actors whose characters are quite definitively dead by this point. Another character who is very much alive is not yet confirmed to return, although there are reasons to be optimistic. There are flash-forwards, potential flashbacks, builds to "Crisis," loose ends to tie off, questions to answer, and more.
We can only hope that Arrow is a great finished product before that final scene kicks off and ideally delivers some kind of happy ending for Oliver Queen. Just because he won't be totally miserable in Season 8 doesn't mean that he doesn't deserve an unambiguously happy ending! Surely Oliver can have a happy ending, even if the Supernatural guys might not!
Find out when Arrow returns for its eighth and final season in October. The rest of the Arrow-verse except for Legends of Tomorrow will hit the airwaves in October as well, including the first episode of Batwoman, which will be part of the "Crisis" crossover that eventually brings Legends back in 2020. And those are only some of the many shows coming to television in the not-too-distant future!
