Arrow‘s eighth and final season is going to be different from anything fans of The CW‘s Arrowverse series has seen before. Not only is it shorter than normal with just 10 total episodes, but it will also intersect with the “Crisis on Infinite Earths” crossover event. Beyond those two obvious elements, though, the season will also be different due to a changed cast landscape, with Emily Bett Rickard not returning for the final season and it’s that absence that, for series star Stephen Amell, makes Season 8 “fundamentally different”.
During Arrow‘s presentation during the Television Critics Association press tour on Sunday, Amell said that Arrow as we know it ended when Rickards left the show.
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“This year is fundamentally different,” Amell said. “The episodes are events. The show as we constructed it ended as Emily left.”
The idea that Rickards’ absence has made for a different Arrow is something that Amell has spoken about before. Speaking with ET at San Diego Comic-Con last month, Amell said that her absence makes him sad, her absence changing everything.
“I actually texted her when I was on the plane to Vancouver last week and I just texted her that I was sad,” Amell said. “The show feels different, in no small part because Em Bett’s not with us anymore. It feels different.”
Roughly a month after it was announced that Arrow would be ending with Season 8, Rickards announced that she was leaving the show at the end of the seventh season and when the season finale came around, Arrow brought Felicity’s story to a close in a way that not only honored the character, but allowed the door to stay open so that the series could wrap things up. Having saved Star City one last time, Oliver and Felicity departed to have their daughter in the safety of a secluded cabin. While their happily ever after was short-lived as The Monitor showed up for Oliver, in the show’s 2040 flash forward storyline we saw an older Felicity depart with The Monitor herself, presumably to be reunited with the man she loves.
When Arrow returns, Oliver’s new normal will see the hero one something of a world tour, of sorts, at least according to executive producer Marc Guggenheim and showrunner Beth Schwartz.
In a previous interview, Guggenheim and Schwartz talked a bit about Oliver’s (Stephen Amell) journey in the show’s final season.
“[We’re] taking the show on the road, really getting away from Star City,” Guggenheim said. “Oliver is going to be traveling the world and we’re going to go to a lot of different places. Every time I see Oliver and the Monitor, it’s like, ‘Okay, we are very far from where we started.’ But again, that means the show has grown and evolved.”
“This is sort of his final test because it’s greater than Star City,” Schwartz added.
Arrow‘s final season will begin Tuesday, October 15th, at 9/8c on The CW.
Additional reporting by Scott Huver.
