So after eight-ish years, Arrow has come to an end, và while the many shows that span off from it are pressing forward, it’s a shame to see it go… is how I felt at the over of last season, which felt like the actual final season. Season 8? It was mostly build up for the Crisis on Infinite Earths crossover, a backdoor pilot, and then an actual final episode that wasn’t any better than the finale of Season 7, with the exception of having more cameos. Still! Let’s have a final look at an Arrow season (unless I go back và re-watch earlier seasons a fair few years down the line…)
Synopsis:
In order lớn prepare for the crisis lớn come, Oliver Queen has been sent into the multiverse in order to gather various equipment and resources, all the while the Green Arrow knows he preparing for his death…
*spoilers appear from here on out!*
The Good:
Good old League of Assassins… man has that organisation ever been mined lớn death in the Arrowverse!
The first seven episodes feel very much like a set of an Epilogue lớn Arrow itself, and a Prologue lớn Crisis on Infinite Earths. Episode 1 is on Earth-2 và so we get some “not how you know them” versions of characters, including dead ones, và some references khổng lồ Season 1’s plot before the whole universe is erased (apart from that universe’s Laurel Lance, just so we can have a Laurel on the show for the next few episodes), while episodes 2, 3, 5, và 7 take us back to Hong Kong, Nanda Parbat, revisits Oliver’s connection with the Russian mob and ends with a trip to lớn Lian Yu, respectively, with 4 acting as a “how will the present & future versions of Team Arrow co-exist” story after … well, the future Team Arrow was sent to the past. These episode are fine little mini-stories calling back on the series’ past and sowing some distrust between our lead & the all-powerful Monitor, a fear that goes away just in time for the over of all worlds khổng lồ begin…
During the course of the season Roy returned, despite not wanting to, & then lost an arm, making Diggle (who pretty much forced him to come back) to feel rightfully guilty, & then he declared his love for Thea, who he broke off with off-screen. The two agree to get married in the finale, so hooray, but that was a lot of bollocks to giảm giá khuyến mãi with in such a short space of time… Wasn’t bad to have him back in the series, but it was such a footnote that I’ve gone back and written this paragraph after I’d written the rest of the đánh giá because I went “Oh yeah! That…” I’ll keep it in the good, but it’s more of a “middle”.
The gathering of the side characters for the finale was… perhaps overboard? Does anyone really remember Ragman?
Episode 10 then, the big finale sees everyone sad that Oliver is gone, a flashback to lớn Season 1 where Diggle is still trying to convince Mr. Queen that killing everyone wasn’t the best course of action, và a plot where the present William is kidnapped but saved by the collection of past, present and future heroes that have appeared on the show in the last 8 seasons, minus Green Arrow himself, obviously. It then ends with a funeral scene & some “their adventures continue” scenes, which includes John Diggle finding a Green Lantern ring, finally making the fan speculation a reality, probably just for the hell of it. It was fine, though it didn’t feel better or worse than the Season 7 finale (as in pre-Monitor arriving finale) và generally after a season that felt like it wasn’t doing much other than waiting for the big crossover, it was a bit of an anti-climax. Not bad, but not great.
The Bad:
I’m trying… I’m trying…. Nope, don’t care.
There was another flashforward story in the first few episodes, with Future Team Arrow dealing with Future Deathstroke và his gang. I … just didn’t care. I knew the season was just leading khổng lồ Crisis on Infinite Earths, và so the story wouldn’t go anywhere, & sure enough, it didn’t. They arrived in Present Day Star City, met Oliver, then during the Crisis everything gets reset so the hellish dystopian society we saw them live through never happened. Episode 9 is a backdoor pilot (or really, just a pilot as I believe the spin-off has already been greenlit…) for a Future Team Arrow series where all of Oliver’s work khổng lồ “save his city” that we see in Episode 10 has worked… hasn’t worked for long, and crime is soon eking back into the city. *shrugs* kind of takes away from the finale a fair bit, & there hasn’t been any part of the Future Team Arrow stories or pilot that has made me want khổng lồ watch an entire series of it. I’ll pass.
Episode 6 was a take on the old Groundhog Day cliché, where Oliver wakes up in a world he doesn’t recognise và has to lớn live it over và over again until he learns his lesson. Laurel as well, has to giảm giá with it, eventually getting khổng lồ say goodbye khổng lồ her father và coming khổng lồ terms with the guilt she felt over his death. Oliver also had to lớn learn to lớn accept fate before he moved lớn the final pre-Crisis episode. It was fine, I guess, but it got old fast, and it’s a cliché that’s a little worn by now. Seeing Quintin Lance die over và over was weird, given he is actually dead… or was, he’s now alive in the post-Crisis version of Star City.
Actually, that’s one last thing: in the finale we see that the new version of Earth has Oliver’s Mum, his best friend Tommy và Quintin Lance all back alive and well. Kind of a cop out for the sake of having everyone at his funeral…
Overall Thoughts:
Let’s kết thúc with a shot of the father-daughter-from-the-future tag team fight club scene, because that’s how weird the series got at the end…
Arrow’s eighth and final season was a bit of a mish-mash of nice callbacks, dull flashforwards, & build up to lớn an event I’ve already covered separately. It also has a pilot lớn a series I won’t be watching, and a decent, if a little safe & dull, finale. I guess it was just okay. At 10 episodes and most of the plot-threads already neatly wrapped up in the previous season, there wasn’t much else to vì chưng but wait until this season ended so we can officially declare Arrow as a whole finished.
Posted on: January 30, 2020 Last updated on: January 30, 2020 Categorized in: ReviewsWritten by: Marcus Panem
Oliver Queen has been put khổng lồ rest with an amazing legacy in his wake, & now it’s time khổng lồ go over the last 10 episodes of the show that started CW’s massive DC universe.
Oliver Queen has been put to rest with an amazing legacy in his wake, & now it’s time khổng lồ go over the last 10 episodes of the show that started CW’s massive DC universe.
Once again, Stephen Amell stars as Oliver Queen/the Green Arrow. Mainstays of the past season return, with David Ramsey, Katie Cassidy, Rick Gonzalez, Juliana Harkavy, Katherine Mc
Namara, Ben Lewis, and Joseph David-Jones all reprising their roles. Added to lớn the cast is La
Monica Garrett as the Monitor. Noticeably missing from the main cast is Emily Bett Rickards as Felicity Smoak, although she does appear in a few scenes, like a plethora of other Arrow characters did throughout the season.
I have to lớn say, this season was not perfect. It’s close lớn the chất lượng of season 5, but a few things hold it back, specifically regarding the last two episodes. I’ll get into the negatives later, but first I want khổng lồ discuss what I think the season did right. As far as today’s CW standards go, the final season of Arrow surprisingly stayed true to what the show was at heart, really hearkening on the dark past of Oliver Queen & his legacy, while also setting up his grand sendoff in Crisis.
I think one of the main reasons why season 8 was so good for me is that it didn’t repeat some of the mistakes that the past seasons have made. A huge improvement was the drama, or lack of it. Maybe slashing season 8 to less than half the normal amount of episodes left less space for drama, but I’m not complaining. Most of the drama this season came from Oliver accepting his death in Crisis & how his legacy will live on, which I think was perfectly fine. Felicity also wasn’t in most of the season, which might also have something to do with the lack of unnecessary drama.
Another problem I had with the show in the past came from the season 7 flash forwards with Mia, William, and Connor in 2040. When they were initially introduced, I thought the idea of the flash forwards could be interesting, but I quickly grew tired of them. They seemed shoved in khổng lồ take up time, & I honestly wasn’t invested in the storyline, which seemed so unnecessarily convoluted; not to mention they broke pacing for the present day scenes. Season 8 has a few flash forwards, but then the future characters are brought khổng lồ the present and things suddenly got much more interesting.
I was mostly intrigued by Oliver’s relationship with Mia in the present day. It kind of reminded me of the relationship Barry had with Nora in The Flash season 5. Oliver takes on the role of a mentor, passing the mantle of the Green Arrow to his daughter. I got the sense that he wasn’t just teaching her the skills she needed lớn be a hero, but also how to lớn not make the same mistakes he made.
The last season also did a pretty decent job of paying homage to lớn Arrow history. The Undertaking on Earth-2 in the premiere was maybe one of my favorite moments in the season because it took something longtime fans were familiar with but changed it up to lớn make it fresh. Other moments, lượt thích Oliver returning to Russia, the Hong Kong episode with đài loan trung quốc White, và Fyres returning as a ghost of sorts on Lian Yu all throwback to lớn the past, with just enough changed lớn seem different.
A few of the supporting characters across seasons also get some good final moments on the show. Katana, Roy, & Thea each get their turn in the spotlight without stealing the show. My personal favorite episode of the season (excluding the crossover) was 8×06 “Reset.” It focused a lot on getting closure for Quentin’s death while also showing Oliver that his own fate of dying cannot be denied. It was a powerful way khổng lồ involve Quentin’s character, while relating the homage to lớn the character to lớn the narrative.
But then the last two episodes came, & while they were not horrible, they certainly brought the season down a bit in my opinion. There were things I liked about these episodes, lượt thích Mia taking over as the Green Arrow of 2040, and Diggle getting the Green Lantern ring, but overall these last two episodes were a bit unremarkable to me compared to the episodes that came before them.
I will admit that I didn’t hate 8×09 “Green Arrow và the Canaries,” because it genuinely wasn’t that bad. It was a decent episode, and pretty much on par with the other Arrowverse shows of recent years. My problem with it was that it was put in as a backdoor pilot for a Mia Queen Arrow spin-off, and as a result, just felt out of place. I think the premise of the show is a tad bit interesting, but the decision to release it the week before the finale was an odd choice I didn’t like.
There were only a couple things I didn’t lượt thích about the finale itself: the William subplot and the last scene. The whole kidnapping storyline just brought in some random demon from Oliver’s past who we never saw before; I would have thought the villain would be someone we know, which would have tied things together better. This seemed like another case of CW filler, as well as a reason to have everyone suit up for the last time.
As for the final scene with Felicity, it just kind of highlighted my personal problem with the Arrowverse: having heroics take the backseat in favor of sappy romance. I guess it appeals to fans who ship “Olicity” but it’s just not my cup of tea. While the concept could be done well, I just found the scene kind of cringeworthy. The fact that this was the last scene of Arrow ever is what bummed me out. Of all the ways the show could have ended, why with this?
Overall, Arrow ended pretty solid, executing a surprisingly good sendoff for Oliver Queen. You know what lớn expect with CW shows, so I knew not to lớn set the bar too high, & I was happy with what I got. This season is definitely one of the better ones, and has a lot to offer for fans of the show from its earliest days. Arrow wrapped up with a pretty good run, which I suspect will hold up for years to lớn come.
