Arrow Producer Says the Final Season Will Mirror Previous Episodes

When The CW's Arrowverse returns this fall it's going to come with a major shift. Arrow, the Stephen Amell-starring series that started it all, is returning for its eighth and final season. While much of the season -- which is only ten episodes long -- will help lead into the coming "Crisis on Infinite Earths" the series will also take a look back. According to executive producer Marc Guggenheim, Arrow will be revisiting the popular series' "greatest hits".

In a recent interview with Entertainment Weekly, Guggenheim noted that the shorted season would have some strong ties to episodes of previous seasons as Oliver Queen (Amell) sets off on the mission given to him by the Monitor (LaMonica Garrett) in the Season 7 finale. In that episode, the Monitor came to call on Oliver, collecting on the bargain the hero made during the "Elseworlds" crossover in order to save his friends, Barry Allen/The Flash (Grant Gustin) and Kara Danvers/Supergirl (Melissa Benoist).

"We're basically revisiting our greatest hits in the episodes leading to the crossover," Guggenheim said.

Amell went a bit further, breaking down how specific episodes reflect on previous seasons and described the overall effect as being part of a limited series.

"Episode 1 is like season 1, episode 2 is about a very specific part of season 3," Amell said. "Episode 3 is about a very specific part of the latter half of season 3. Every episode feels like an event. It feels like a limited series."

Guggenheim previously told ComicBook.com that Arrow is able to take this sort of approach with its final season as it's not bound to answering a question like some shows are in their final season.

"The good news is unlike Game of Thrones or unlike Lost, we're not burdened with having to answer a question," Guggenheim said. "We're not burdened with 'who's going to sit on the Iron Throne?' or 'what was the island?' so we get to do, I think, a much more character-based ending. So, at the same time, the complication for us is that we also have "Crisis" and I think a lot of the stuff that was always in my head in terms of how to end the show we're now actually going to end up doing in the crossover instead so it's like now what does the series finale become? But, you know, we've got plans."

When Arrow returns this fall fans also won't have to deal with much of a time jump between the Season 7 finale and where we find Oliver on his potentially Multiverse-saving mission, either. Showrunner Beth Schwartz previously explained that Season 8 will pick up a week after Oliver says goodbye to his wife, Felicity (Emily Bett Rickards) and infant daughter Mia.

"We pick up a week later," Schwartz said.

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