Arrow Series Finale Features a Powerless Easter Egg

In tonight’s episode of Arrow — the series finale, titled “Fadeout,” we get to see Roy Harper (Colton Haynes) and Thea Queen (Willa Holland) together again for the first time in quite a while. It’s a source of stress for Roy, since he feels guilty about the way things ended between them and wants to see their relationship get back together. But of course, with her brother’s death being the thing that brings them together, it isn’t an ideal time for a “state of the union” kind of conversation between the old lovers. But a key scene between the two actually hides a fun Easter egg for DC fans.

In promotional images, Arrow revealed that the pair are in costume and on a roof at some point in the episode. When that happens, Roy decides it’s time to finally say what he has to say to Thea…and the whole time they’re having the conversation, they are standing in front of a big billboard for Van Wayne Enterprises. Van Wayne is Bruce’s younger cousin, and the guy in charge of a part of Wayne Enterprises that featured in Powerless, an NBC sitcom about workers at Wayne Enterprises who developed consumer products meant to help everyday people cope with life in a world of superheroes and villains.

“When we have to cover something up or have a billboard or something, we’ve conditioned the art department to recognize it as an Easter egg opportunity,” Arrow co-creator Marc Guggenheim told ComicBook.com. “And they’ll contact us and say, ‘listen, we’re putting up a billboard here. What Easter egg do you want to put in the billboard?’ And we got that phone call, and by that point I was done with ‘Crisis’ and Easter egged-out. Just in terms of the amount of approvals, and everything else I need to do in order to get these Easter eggs in. So I basically just cried ‘mercy,’ and I just called up Dan Evans at DC and said, ‘okay. Easter egg opportunity. Give me a pitch.’ Because I was just like, anything that Dan pitches, I know is by virtue of him pitching it, is already approved. I’m like, that’s great. And that was his idea. I love the show Powerless, and that was one of the shows that we couldn’t get into the crossover. So it was like, ‘great! Let’s do that.’”

Tonight’s episode will see the series cast, along with a number of returning guest stars from seasons past and some from other DC TV shows, mourning the passing of Oliver Queen, who gave his life during the “Crisis on Infinite Earths” event. There will be a flashback to season one, though, providing some action in an episode that could otherwise feel like a strange outlier in a series that relied so much on action and stunts to craft its visual and narrative identity.

“We felt it was important for Roy and Thea to reconcile,” Guggenheim told ComicBook.com, adding that because the couple have fought and argued and made up and broken up so many times in the show’s eight seasons, he and executive producer/showrunner Beth Schwartz felt it was really important to get their dynamic right so that it felt like the scenes belonged in the finale.

Arrow airs its series finale tonight at 9 p.m. ET/PT on The CW, following a one-hour retrospective series titled Hitting the Bullseye, which will feature interviews that reflect on the series’ history and legacy.