The season finale shows us the original Team Arrow – Oliver, Felicity, and Diggle for one last time. The finale also gives us a glimpse of Star City in the year 2040, where a new Team Arrow is protecting the city.
Oliver’s Half-Sister Emiko
The season 7 of Arrow had begun with Oliver Queen in prison and Team Arrow scattered, as an imposter Green Arrow starts roaming around town. The new archer was revealed to be Oliver’s half-sister Emiko – a secret his father Robert had kept from the Queen family; Emiko eventually fell in with a terrorist organization called the Ninth Circle.
But the finale wasn’t about the sibling rivalry between Oliver and Emiko. She was killed halfway through the episode by a member of the Ninth Circle after the Ninth Circle followers turned on her.
As always the day was yet again saved by a thrilling fight from Team Arrow. The rest of the episode was spent in delivering an emotional payoff, as Oliver and Felicity, who is now pregnant, go into hiding from the Ninth Circle.
The original Team Arrow trio of Oliver, Felicity, and Diggle bid goodbye inside their lair, and we see them for one last time together, before shutting out the lights forever. The season finale starts to feel like the series finale instead, especially when Diggle talks of future heroes carrying on the Green Arrow’s legacy.
The next shot shows Oliver and Felicity’s daughter Mia being born, and both of them thinking of reacquiring custody of William. Their peace is broken when the Monitor shows up, looking to collect on the deal Oliver made with him earlier.
Oliver must help evade a multiversal crisis, to save Barry and Kara’s lives. Despite the knowledge that he will die during this crisis, Oliver goes to complete the deal.
Star City, 2040.
Instead of the usual flashbacks (that haunted the first 5 seasons), this episode featured a flashforward, showing us the state of Star City 21 years into the future (that is, 2040). Walking in the footsteps of her dad, an adult Mia uses her archery skills to prevent Star City from becoming a fascist regime.
After the older members of Team Arrow retire and go into hiding, Mia, along with William, plus Wild Dog’s daughter Zoe and Diggle’s adopted son Connor Hawke, form the new Team Arrow.
In another sort of goodbyes, Felicity bids adieu to her kids at Oliver’s grave. The grave confirms Oliver’s death occurring in 2019. Her journey puts her in the path of Monitor, who reunites her with her Oliver in the afterlife. This is the conclusive end to Felicity’s story, as Emily Bett Richards won’t be back in the final season.
What comes next?
Arrow’s final season will be only 10 episodes long, but it will have a lot of stories to cover. All that’s for sure is that the flashforwards will be back, so we will be seeing a lot of Future Team Arrow, trying to fill in the shoes of their predecessor heroes.
If you have been following The Flash this season, you will recall that Nora West-Allen name drops that a Green Arrow exists in 2049, so it’s possible that Mia will take the name officially at some point in the season.
Now that the future is out of the picture, what about the present? Nothing’s known for sure, but we can venture a guess. There is the possibility that a reunited Team Arrow – now including Spartan, Wild Dog, Black Canary, and probably Bronze Tiger – will take on the Ninth Circle themselves.
Although Arsenal said he will leave town to find himself, again, there’s the possibility he’ll return too. If one thing’s for sure, in the past seasons, it is that no one really leaves Star City.
The final season leaves the most potential for setting up a fitting finale of Green Arrow, a.k.a. Oliver, the hero who started the Arrowverse. Many questions will be answered in the series finale (hopefully!).
Will Oliver be running around the multiverse, forming a team of heroes for the Crisis? How will a human archer with a superhuman proficiency save all the realities? Let’s hope this series doesn’t end like another recent super-hyped show that had a disappointing ending.