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This interview with Stephen was published in an Australian newspaper when he was here in June and it seems like he was expecting the show to continue on after his exit, which doesn’t exactly line up with what Marc is saying in the TVLine article. https://thewest.com.au/entertainment/tv/arrow-star-bids-farewell-in-perth-ng-b881237159z

It was slightly annoying that they were trying to sell the season as something other than what it is. Yes, there is a flash forward storyline but at least 8 episodes of the season will support the set up and execution of the crossover. The final two episodes are a toss up. I’m assuming that they’ll wrap up the impacts of the crossover on Star City and close out Arrow.

I’m so happy they slowed down the episode at the end and gave Oliver and Felicity the time they deserved in the closing minutes. It was the saving grace of the episode (and season), for me. I admit that I was more than a little sceptical about them writing a decent closure for it.

They left too much story for the final episode and trying to do two finales in one and farewell Felicity meant everything was rushed. Emiko went from villain to non-villain at lightning speed. I think they spent too much time off on story tangents and experimenting with new story telling methods this season and then had to rush to the end leaving plot holes behind. I still don’t know how William knew where Felicity’s office was in Smoak Tech and could recognize her specific coding, but apparently never saw her again after he left with his grandparents - but I may not have been paying full attention this season.

I didn’t find future Zoe that interesting. But I don’t know if that’s because they saddled her with future Dinah AND future Rene or because I’m completely canaried out and don’t need version 4.0 of that character or want to see an entire network of canaries. In any case, I’ve managed to completely tune out whatever her plot was in the flash forwards. I know she was in them, but I can’t tell you what she did.

I’m glad Stephen more or less confirmed that Oliver is on Monitor tasks for S8. It’s probably going to annoy me for awhile that the show was pushed down this pathway simply because TPTB wanted the Crisis crossover.

Dinah getting a tattoo of the four pillars of heroism and then immediately discarding the loyalty one to believe Felicity had turned villainous fits nicely with her flip flopping personality this season.

I’m a little confused about the Mark of Four tattoo. Oliver listed the four components, Courage, Compassion, Selflessness and Loyalty, but where/how did the tattoo factor into it? I can’t really remember, but is Dinah the only one who had the tattoo? I thought it was something they all had but now I’m not sure. It feels like it was meant to be important but was left dangling. Did I miss something along the way?

Their dedication to not understating what the show presents onscreen is remarkable. Who, if not Oliver, did they think Felicity was talking about when she said to The Monitor “I’ve been waiting a very long time to see him”? The biggest problem anyone wanting a GA/BC pairing will always have, with Stephen and Katie in the roles, is their lack of spark and romantic chemistry. I don’t think that’s going to be fixed or undergo a miraculous change simply because Emily/Felicity is no longer on the show.

My expectations for the finale were low but it was much better than I thought it would be. The final Olicity scenes with Stephen and Emily were perfect. I’m not usually a teary person for TV shows but those scenes and how they played the scenes really worked for me. I wish I’d cared a little more about Emiko, but I didn’t, so her flip to redemption didn’t make that much of an impact. I think they left too much to cover in the final episode. I will always be a little resentful that Arrow couldn’t end on its own terms because of the crossover. I’m happy that Oliver and Felicity were reunited in wherever that glowy wormhole took her, but I’ll never like that they had to sacrifice so much for with a 20 year separation and missing out on raising their kids together. It’s not perfect ending, but it’ll be my series finale. As much as I love Oliver Queen, without Felicity, Olicity and all the things that I loved about the show a S8 isn’t that appealing. But, if they’re both back for 810 then I’ll come back.

The last time Beth said she cried over a scene was the pregnancy reveal and it sped by so quickly there was barely a chance to tear up. Which means I’ve adjusted my expectations for the finale and the final 10 minutes accordingly. The fan detectives on Twitter think the “spoiler” in the background of the EBR photo Bamford posted is Curtis, which is not exciting...or a spoiler because he was in the episode stills. If they think Curtis is an interesting reveal then they haven’t been paying attention to fan response to him.

It disappoints me that the show I used to rush home to watch feels like a hollow shell of what it used to be. There’s been a lot of plots and gotchas in the previous seasons that I didn’t particularly enjoy but the things I loved about the show always outweighed everything else. It’s completely flipped now and the things that are aggravating are outweighing the parts that I still like and the feeling of misery running through the show really isn’t enjoyable to me.

It’s like S5 where everyone was concerned about gun control for one episode and then in the next episode they were staging multiple shoot outs with machine guns everywhere. Arrow is not at all self-aware.

Tommy’s surprise! returns are so frequent (at least 6 since his S1 death) and combined with the fact that it’s Felicity’s second last episode and they’re handing out the minimum of Olicity content, I’m finding it very hard to care and wonder why we’re wasting time on this in the run up to the finale. The season finale itself sounds jam packed going by Beth’s description on TVLine. The flash forward characters have a finale, the present day characters have a finale and there’s action, action, action and surprise character returns. Will they be able to fit everything into 42 minutes without rushing on through? The pacing of the story on this show will always confuse me. In any case, I’m going to try and keep my expectations set to low and hopefully be pleasantly surprised by what they deliver.

This is the exact problem I’m having with Emiko - boo hoo, so she’s suffered a little trauma in life. We’ve watched as Oliver survived five years in hell where his father committed suicide in front of him, he was tortured and had to fight for his survival. His body bares every scar as a visual reminder of that trauma. In the past 7 years he’s watched his mother get murdered in front of him, a sister stabbed and revived by Lazarus Pit, his fiancé shot and paralysed, his best friend & two former girlfriends all killed. He was tortured again, forced to join the LOA, killed his own Earth X doppelgänger, survived Slabside, and on and on we go and he’s not running around trying to kill people because of it. He’s still a good man with good intentions. Meanwhile, we’ve known Emiko for a handful of episodes and so far it looks more like she’s throwing a tantrum by leading a terrorist organisation and wanting to personally destroy Oliver, his legacy and a city full of people all because her Dad didn’t love her enough. The writers didn’t set up enough motivation for Emiko for me to see her actions any other way than over the top for her underlying issue and misplaced in directing so much anger at Oliver.