Stephen Amell Reveals His All-Time Favorite Episode of Arrow

With Arrow coming to an end this fall, series star Stephen Amell may be working on his final episodes as Oliver Queen, but he’s also reflecting on the series as a whole and at the Television Critics Association press tour on Sunday, that meant revealing his favorite episode of the entire series — and it’s one that goes back to the early years of The CW series.

During Sunday’s presentation, Amell revealed that his favorite episode of Arrow is season 2, episode 20 entitled “Seeing Red”. The episode, which was written by Wendy Mericle and current show runner Beth Schwartz, is one Amell found particularly beautiful.

“That was a really beautiful episode,” Amell said.

As fans of Arrow may recall, “Seeing Red” saw some deeply touching moments between Oliver and his mother, Moira (Susanna Thompson), both in flashback and in the show’s then-present day. In flashback, Oliver reveals to Moira that he got a woman pregnant that isn’t his then-girlfriend Laurel with Moira telling her son that they’ll figure it out and we later see her paying off the girl to tell Oliver that she lost the baby. Then, in the present, Oliver tries to talk Moira out of dropping out of the mayoral race, with Moira revealing to Oliver that she knows he’s the Arrow and she couldn’t be more proud of him.

Of course, for all those touching moments, there is one last one that is among the most heartbreaking of the series. Slade Wilson/Deathstroke (Manu Bennett) captures the Queen family and makes Oliver choose between his mother and his sister, Thea (Willa Holland). Ultimately, Moira offers her own life so as to spare her children and Slade runs her through with his sword while both Oliver and Thea watch.

That heartbreaking end of Moira Queen’s story is part of what makes the recent announcement that Thompson will return to reprise the role in the show’s final season all the more interesting. It’s not exactly clear the context in which we’ll be seeing Moira Queen again — flashback, alternate earth, or even hallucination on Oliver’s part are all real possibilities — but what is clear is that the final season of Arrow is one that executive producer Marc Guggenheim has previously described as a “love letter” to the show.

“It’s a love letter to the show; it really is,” Arrow executive producer and “Crisis on Infinite Earths” showrunner Marc Guggenheim told Green Arrow TV. “I was telling Beth [Schwartz], it felt a lot like the series finale, not the season premiere, in the best possible way, almost to the point where we’re like ‘what are we going to do for the series finale?’ I mean, we know, obviously, but it has that kind of resonance to it, and that’s exciting.”

Arrow‘s eighth and final season will premiere on Tuesday, October 15, 2019 on The CW.

What is your favorite episode of Arrow? Let us know in the comments below!

Additional reporting by Scott Huver.