The upcoming departure of Arrow‘s leading lady Emily Bett Rickards will cast a long shadow over the series’ eighth and final season, which will run in the fall for ten episodes. After reflecting on the loss for a couple of days, series star Stephen Amell finally made a statement, and now longtime showrunner and current consulting producer Marc Guggenheim has shared a piece of “Olicity” history…although is it really history if it hasn’t technically happened yet? Flash-forwards are confusing. Anyway, he (as well as stunt coordinator James Bamford) shared a high-quality version of an image from “Star City 2040,” the recent “flash-forward episode” of Arrow, which depicts Oliver Queen (Amell) and Felicity Smoak (Rickards) together with their newborn baby Mia. The moment is a precious one since, according to the flash-forwards, Mia was raised almost entirely without her father.
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With Rickards’s early departure, it also seems as though the fans not get to spend much (if any) time with Oliver, Felicity, and the baby all together, either. It is not clear how Felicity will be written out of the show, although given Oliver’s public identity and the fact that his family is a constant target of supervillains, it may be that she simply goes somewhere else to give birth. This is the second time in three days that Guggenheim has released something on social media tied to Rickards’s departure; on Saturday, he tweeted a tribute to Rickards in verse, echoing the way she had announced her departure to fans on Instagram.
I got more than a few requests for this… pic.twitter.com/zSOIzWVzlY
— Marc Guggenheim (@mguggenheim) April 1, 2019
“We’ve had the pleasure of working with Emily since season one and in those past seven years she has brought one of TV‘s most beloved characters to life,” wrote executive producers Greg Berlanti and Beth Schwartz in a statement. “And although we’re heartbroken to see both Emily and Felicity leave the show, we’re completely supportive of Emily and her future endeavors. She will always have a family at Arrow.”
The CW announced in March that Arrow will end with its eighth season, which leads into DC Television “Crisis on Infinite Earths” crossover. Following the announcement, Rickards wrote in a statement, “I’ve been trying to find the worlds to simply say what the last seven years have meant to me, and I believe this photo sums it up! Without this show I would have not met the inspiring people pictured here nor those I have gotten to work with and get to work with every day. People who have become my family. I’m excited to see what is in store for the story we have been telling.”
Arrow airs on Monday nights at 9 p.m. ET/PT, following episodes of DC’s Legends of Tomorrow on The CW. There is no new episode of Arrow tonight.
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