Stephen Amell Starts Filming the Final Season of Arrow

When Arrow returns this fall it will be for its final season. Announced earlier this year, the ground-breaking The CW series that kicked off the network’s Arrowverse of DC-inspired shows — including The Flash, Supergirl, Legends of Tomorrow, and the upcoming Batwoman — is concluding its story with ten final episodes. Now, with production on that eight and final season underway, series star Stephen Amell is marking the start of shooting “one last time”.

In a post on Instagram earlier this week, Amell shared a photo of the clacker board for episode #801 — the eight season premiere of Arrow that began shooting on Thursday. Check it out below.

And Amell wasn’t the only person marking the beginning of the end for Arrow. Showrunner Beth Schwartz shared a photo on her Twitter account of the episode script’s title page, revealing that the premiere will be entitled “Starling City”. As fans of the series will recall, Arrow‘s primary location and Oliver’s hometown was known as Starling City for the first three seasons of the series, eventually coming to be renamed as Star City with the apparent death of Ray Palmer (Brandon Routh.) The name “Starling City” has some fans thinking that maybe the final season will see Oliver explore some of his past, though with Oliver tasked by The Monitor (LaMonica Garrett) to help stop the coming “Crisis on Infinite Earths” even knowing that his death is near, anything is possible when it comes to what direction Arrow will go in Season 8.

“There are so many characters [to consider]. So many characters,” Schwartz explained in a recent interview. “And we’re definitely thinking about all of that, because just as much as our fans want to see it, as people who have been on the show for a long time, we are also fans of these characters. So we’re going to make sure that everyone has a great final season.”

“That’s the exciting part of next season, only having 10 episodes,” Schwartz revealed. “We’ve [been] brainstorming and thinking about who we want back, because there are so many characters that we love… I think every episode is just going to be humongous. We’re going to fit it all in, and it’s definitely going to be an amazing season.”

You can check out the synopsis for Arrow‘s final season below.

“After a violent shipwreck, billionaire playboy Oliver Queen (Stephen Amell) was missing and presumed dead for five years before being discovered alive on a remote island in the North China Sea. He returned home to Star City, bent on righting the wrongs done by his family and fighting injustice. As the Green Arrow, Oliver successfully saved his city with the help of his team including former soldier John Diggle (David Ramsey), computer-science expert Felicity Smoak (Emily Bett Rickards), former protégé Roy Harper (Colton Haynes), street-savvy Rene Ramirez (Rick Gonzalez), metahuman Dinah Drake (Juliana Harkavy), brilliant inventor Curtis Holt (Echo Kellum) and Earth-2 Laurel Lance (Katie Cassidy). In the wake of discovering what his future holds, Oliver will find himself pit against his most challenging battle yet, one that will leave the multiverse hanging in the balance. In Arrow’s final season, Oliver Queen is forced to confront the reality of what it means to be a hero.”

Arrow‘s final season will begin Tuesday, October 15th, at 9/8c on The CW.