Arrow Star Details How Felicity Impacts Season 8

The final season of Arrow is going to feel a little strange, due in part to the absence of longtime leading lady Emily Bett Rickards. Rickards, as Felicity Smoak, came into the series in a fairly minor role and was almost immediately promoted after producers saw how good her onscreen chemistry with Oliver Queen series star Stephen Amell) was. The cast will miss Rickards, and Oliver will miss his wife, but Felicity will cast a long shadow on the show's upcoming eighth season -- both in the present day and in the flash-forward storyline, which will provide the setting for a backdoor pilot to a planned spinoff starring Katherine McNamara as the grown-up daughter of Oliver and Felicity.

Smoak left the series not due to anything in-story but due to Rickards' decision to move on. The character, who appeared in both timelines during last season's run, disappeared into a breach (in the year 2040) at the end of the season seven finale, saying that she was planning to see Oliver again. Since he is expected to die in "Crisis on Infinite Earths," there's still some speculation going around as to what that meant. But one thing is clear: she said that she had promised Oliver to take care of the kids -- and only left becuase she now felt confident that Mia could take care of herself and William.

Mia "is not used to having to look out for anyone but herself, and she promised her mother that she would protect William," McNamara told TVLine. "But she can't fight for him, so that's real fear, and it's something she doesn't know how to handle. It's quite the learning curve!"

"She is ever-present in Oliver's mind," Amell said in a recent interview. "We found Oliver can't wear his wedding ring in the premiere for a very specific reason, but he can wear it in the second episode. And it wasn't built into the script, but I spoke to our director, Antonio Negret, and we built a moment of Oliver putting his ring back on and thinking about it. So Emily's gone, off the show, but Felicity and William and Mia are ever-present in Oliver's mind."

Arrow returns to The CW this fall for its eighth and final season, a ten-episode run that will bring the story of Oliver Queen (Stephen Amell), Felicity Smoak (Emily Bett Rickards, who exited the series at the end of last season), John Diggle (David Ramsey), and the rest of Team Arrow to a close (unless, of course, there is a spinoff planned). The series' end will coincide with The CW's "Crisis on Infinite Earths" mega-event, which will run for five episodes over December 2019 and January 2020, featuring episodes from Arrow, The Flash, DC's Legends of Tomorrow, Supergirl, and Batwoman. That seems particularly meaningful since in Arrow's season seven finale, The Monitor arrived to tell Oliver and Felicity that Oliver would need to join him — and that he would not survive the experience of helping The Monitor defend the multiverse in the Crisis.

Season eight of Arrow will premiere on October 15, 2019.