Arrowverse Checkup: Arrow Season 8

               Welcome to Arrowverse Checkups. As the Arrowverse enters its eighth year, I’ll checking in with each series premiere see where they are and where they appear to be going. Let’s jump in!

Arrow’s final season has been a weird one. I planned to write this piece after the season premiere, but it did not provide much in the way of hints towards the story of this season. After two episodes, the picture is slightly clearer but remains fuzzy. It has been incredibly good though.

Thus far, this season can be neatly split into two clear storylines. The first of which is a return to the future timeline introduced last season. We’ve already seen the team assemble and now it is time to watch Future Team Arrow kick ass and save the city… Or not. This is a group that is awful at working together. It will take some time for everyone to learn the other’s tendencies and be able to compensate for each other’s short comings, but that is not the big problem. This team has no leadership. Sure, William is bankrolling them and working as their Oracle. And Mia is the obvious successor to the Green Arrow legacy. But Connor Hawke is a former member of Knightwatch (A A.R.G.U.S.-like organization) and has actual training. They all take turns trying to be the Leader, but it feels like the team is going to land on a committee approach.

And they need to get their shit together because the Deathstroke Gang has stepped up. Lead by John Diggle’s son (And Connor’s adoptive brother), J.J., they have grown stronger and increased their influence across the city since the end of last season. It is still unclear what their ultimate goal is this season, but I bet it’ll destroy Star City.

The other storyline is Oliver Queen running errands for the Monitor. He is collecting materials from various universes (Thus far, Earths 1 and 2) for what I and others theorize are the cosmic tuning forks from the comics. These forks changed the vibrational frequency of the universes they were in to hopefully save them from the Ant-Monitor. Given what we know about the upcoming crossover, it appears to be a fairly faithful adaption (within reason) of Crisis on Infinite Earths. So I expect these to make an appearance and this seems like a logical plot.

There are only eight episodes of left of Arrow. One of them is going to part of the Crisis crossover. The episode after that will be a backdoor pilot for Green Arrow and the Canaries, a potential Katherine McNamara spin-off. That title makes me wonder how Future Team Arrow fits into the equation and what their fate will be this season. I do assume their story will be wrapped up in that episode so the finale can focus on Oliver though. Let’s enjoy the journey while we can.