Jessie Robertson reviews Arrow’s season 8 premiere…
We begin the final season of Arrow just like the first season of Arrow: running through trees, sending up a smoke signal with a fire capped arrow into some brush and a boat seeing the signal. A man running, a man of the wilderness, in pine green and in the foreground, an object: a mask on a stick……HOLY S*IT! IS THAT BATMAN’S MASK???
We knew coming into the final season it was going to be a different show. Oliver left his family, his normal life, to help the Monitor fight back this Crisis, even if it meant Oliver’s death was nearing. But, what exactly was this new iteration going to look like? Well, I’m still not exactly sure.
It appears that Oliver is being sent on missions by the Monitor, the first of which is to retrieve the Dwarfstar particles from the only place in time that has them: Earth 2. When Oliver arrives, he’s been gone from Starling City for 12 years, his mother has married Malcolm Merlyn, Thea is dead but Tommy’s alive and there is another Hood running around: Adrian Chase. The showrunners of Arrow have gotten pretty deft at creating alternate realities with our known and loved characters and it seemed like this whole season run of 10 episodes was going to afford them that creative freedom again. Casting Josh Segarra, who was the villain of Season 6, as the Hood in this time was brilliant and he does a great job. The time line is a bit confusing for me though; see, Laurel (remember fake Laurel in the last 2 seasons of Arrow) is back on her Earth as a hero and John Diggle somehow, jumps to this Earth and time to try and either help Oliver in this mission or bring him home. Hold on, what?
The mission, is to retrieve the Dwarfstar particles; unfortunately, when he goes to do that, a Dark Archer gets them first. Oliver automatically suspects Malcolm, so of course, it’s Tommy. Everything plays out close to how it did between Oliver and Malcolm in season one yet he manages to find the good side of Tommy with a speech that Tommy gave him in his dying moments from season one’s finale. You can’t really get much more poetic than that. With the mission a success, Oliver and Diggle depart but not before Laurel warns them something’s happening and Oliver gets a first hand look at what Barry saw just an hour earlier on Te CW as his whole family dies in front of him yet again right before they manage to slip into a time portal. Whew.
That’s not all though: we even get a short sub plot involving the Star City 2040 crew, all the children from last season. It’s a pretty quick couple fight scenes where we see the next generation have picked up right where their parents left off, complete with crime fighting base and all! I’m guessing Oliver will end up meeting all of them at some point or why else have them back on the show?
7/10: An interesting start that’s a bit hard to gauge if it can sustain whatever it is they are building; I fear this storyline is already dangerously close to running alongside The Flash’s eventual death but, maybe that’s the point?
Jessie Robertson
