Arrow is ending with a final batch of 10 episodes this season, and with the main character Oliver Queen’s demise supposedly coming around the time of the Arrowverse crossover Crisis on Infinite Earths, there’s been speculation as to when the series finale will take place.
At the show’s Television Critics Association panel, Deadline reports, executive producer Marc Guggenheim laid out the sequence of episodes we can expect as Arrow’s eighth season unfolds.
After a batch of seven episodes this fall, it will be Arrow’s eighth episode of the season that will crossover for Crisis on Infinite Earths.
Guggenheim also said episodes 9 and 10 will be disconnected from the crossover episode. “Episode 9 is very specific, we know exactly what happens in it,” he added without providing any further details. He also said that episode 10 will be “a proper series finale.”
However, that finale may not be what fans expect. According to The Wrap, Guggenheim said of Arrow’s ending, “Whenever I read about this online, people are asking us questions, they’re thinking about things in a very binary way, that the ending will either be X or Y. All I would say is that we have Z planned.”
We already knew that Arrow’s final season is full of guest stars and will pay homage to the show’s past, but executive producer Beth Schwartz elaborated on the show’s plans further. “The show as people have understood it, I think it ended in our season 7 finale,” she said. “[Season 8’s episodes are] fundamentally different. The episodes are events.” Schwartz explained that the 10 episodes will be “greatest hits” that include guest stars and “tying up stories you could have seen in season 2 or 3.”
Schwartz also said that Arrow would take place in the Arrowverse’s Earth-1 timeline. In a multiverse full of Earths, Earth-1 is the timeline in which most of the Arrowverse’s shows take place, including Arrow.
There had been speculation that with Oliver joining the Monitor on his multiverse-saving mission in the season 7 finale, Arrow’s eighth season could jump between Earths. Schwartz’s comments seem to rule out that possibility.
Oliver Queen himself, Stephen Amell also noted that season 8 will take place in 2019 and Schwartz explaining that the season would begin a mere week after the finale of season 7.
Arrow’s final season will premiere on Tuesday, October 15, at 9/8c on The CW.