‘Arrow’ Alum Colin Donnell Reacts to Series Ending, Thanks Fans for Keeping Tommy Alive

The news of Arrow‘s ending after eight seasons has sparked quite a reaction from fans — and even some of the series’ alums.

Colin Donnell, who played Tommy Merlyn in Arrow‘s first season, recently tweeted his response to the fact that the show will have a final ten-episode season this fall. In a tweet, which you can check out below, Donnell thanked the show for bringing him “wonderful lifelong friends”, and thanked the fans as well for “[keeping] Tommy alive”.

As Arrow fans will surely remember, Tommy was Oliver’s (Stephen Amell) childhood best friend and the son of Malcolm Merlyn (John Barrowman), who factored into the former’s early days as a vigilante in some interesting ways. In one of the show’s most pivotal moments, Tommy died shortly after learning Oliver’s secret identity, something that motivated Oliver to change his approach to being a vigilante.

Since his Season 1 death, Tommy has popped up on the show here and there, even playing the Earth-X version of Prometheus in the 2017 crossover and a (sort of) alternate version of the Green Arrow during Oliver’s Season 6 trial. And as it turns out, the show had been making a pretty active effort to have him return sooner.

“It really is about two things when we’re talking about bringing a character in,” consulting producer Marc Guggenheim explained at a convention appearance in 2017. “It’s we’ve got to have the right story and the actor has to be available. You know a lot of times like we wanted different characters on different shows to come in and just the actor’s not available because like, we wanted, I’ll give you an example – Colin Donnell who plays Tommy Merlyn you know, spoiler, he has a cameo in this year’s crossover. We really wanted him for last year’s crossover for the Arrow 100th episode. We really wanted, you know, Tommy to return, but he’s a series regular on Chicago Med so we couldn’t make the schedule work out.”

While it’s unclear if Donnell could make any appearances in Arrow’s final stretch of episodes, it’s safe to say that the overall legacy of the series will be taken into account as the show wraps up.

“This was a difficult decision to come to, but like every hard decision we’ve made for the past seven years, it was with the best interests of Arrow in mind,” producers Beth Schwartz, Greg Berlanti, and Marc Guggenheim said in a statement. “We’re heartened by the fact that Arrow has birthed an entire universe of shows that will continue on for many years to come. We’re excited about crafting a conclusion that honors the show, its characters and its legacy and are grateful to all the writers, producers, actors, and — more importantly — the incredible crew that has sustained us and the show for over seven years.”

Arrow airs Mondays at 8/7c on The CW.