Arrow Season 8, Episode 10: "Fadeout" (SERIES FINALE; MAJOR SPOILERS)

[NotNickFury]

So, more Crisis changes with Moira and Lance being alive...unless they're from another Earth like Beth on Batwoman.

 

[Prison Mike]

I’m just waiting for a green lantern ring to fall on Diggle’s lap

 

[Primal Slayer]

Why is there soooooo much focus on Mia?

 

[Primal Slayer]

Laurel goes out the way she's been treated this entire...as the blacksheep of Arrow, never really fitting real. I really wanted a scene with her Lance/Sara and would've been great to see a married Tommy/Laurel.

 

[Hotwire]

I’m just waiting for a green lantern ring to fall on Diggle’s lap

Wish granted!

 

[Prison Mike]

I don’t see why Earth 1 Laurel couldn’t come back. It’s not like there’s some rule that there can only be one version at a time. Earth 2 Laurel could still go do the spin off while Earth 1 Laurel have a normal life with Tommy

 

[NotNickFury]

Well, now John is wearing his ring. If John Wesley Shipp Barry Allen was still alive, now things wouldn't feel so different to him.

 

[vantheman77]

Diggle accepted a promotion in Metropolis. Could he be in the Superman and Lois series?

Diggle getting the ring is the highlight, along with some cameos. I was surprised Supergirl was in it as well as Tommy Merlyn. Glad Nyssa was in it.

 

[vantheman77]

If Diggle becomes Green Lantern, he better join the Justice League. It will be like JLU in live-action!

 

[Primal Slayer]

Diggle accepted a promotion in Metropolis. Could he be in the Superman and Lois series?

Diggle getting the ring is the highlight, along with some cameos. I was surprised Supergirl was in it as well as Tommy Merlyn. Glad Nyssa was in it.

While I dont think he'll be a series regular on any of the shows, MG/DR have said that there are plans for Diggle in the future so I'm assuming he'll be making plenty of appearances in the new seasons coming up.

 

[vantheman77]

With Barry, Kara, and Sara's appearances in the series finale, this would mark the first post-Crisis crossover.

 

[Primal Slayer]

I will say....this episode did the best of showing some of the Crisis fallout. So many people ended up alive (even though E1 Laurel is still dead because....reasons lol) and we even saw how Prime Earth played out with regards to S2, Oliver got to save Moira. That's what I was expecting from this event.

 

[vantheman77]

I think Black Canary Dinah Drake will be in Metropolis as well.

 

[Primal Slayer]

I think Black Canary Dinah Drake will be in Metropolis as well.

She's supposed to disappear from present day shortly after leaving Star City.

 

[vantheman77]

She's supposed to disappear from present day shortly after leaving Star City.

They made it flexible in case the Green Arrow and Canaries spinoff doesn't happen. I hope they have a plan B.

 

[heatvision38]

I'm the opposite....we're living in a post Crisis world where several Earths have been merged...having all these doppelgangers running around on E-P lessons the impact of the event. Everyone should see some type of change.

Which I still can't get over. The show runners are just gonna gloss over that Ollie chose to combine 3 separate Earths, what for the lolz I guess, rather than put Supergirl and BL's Earths back to where they were. That's billions of lives he chose not to bring back because he thought how nice it would be if they were all on the same planet?

Are we supposed to just overlook that? At least give an in-universe explanation for that.

 

[heatvision38]

So then how does the universe decide which person survives? Earth Prime is a merged Earth with a new history. Bruce existed on E1/38, so which Bruce got to live on?

And thus the problem.

At least in the comics there was an in-verse logic to merging the Earths. Here, it's presented as if it's a gift. It couldn't be further from that.

Also, apparently even on an Earth where Superman existed right alongside Ollie, Clark still doesn't have any relationship with him. I'm wondering what this Superman has been doing all these years. They've turned him into such a cipher.

 

[heatvision38]

Oliver restored it, and only 2 Earths were represented as Paragons so screw everyone else?

It's not even about the paragons because BL's Earth also merged. Might as well have the writers show up waving in the background and saying , "Hey, it was us, we just wanted them all on the same Earth. It was easier that way." And here I am thinking, but does logic not matter anymore?

 

[heatvision38]

I don't know, maybe another world needed to be destroyed to conserve resources, and the Black Lightning characters didn't exist on Earth 1 or Earth 38, so they were just carried over. It's not like merging everyone explains everything. Why is Earth 2 different now? Why is Routh Superman now happy and presumably having Lois back? I think some sort of intelligent design shuffling everything around for the best available result, perhaps according to some vaguely defined wishes on Oliver's part, makes as much sense as anything.

You're working harder than the writers are. They are the ones who are supposed to address this.

 

[heatvision38]

The main idea to any "Crisis" event is that it's not supposed to make story sense. The original comic Crisis and now this TV Crisis were both created to streamline the company's confusing multiple universes and timelines created by different writers/shows/different networks. It was a company move, and not a story move. All the problems brought up here for this show could apply to the original comic Crisis as well. None of this stuff really makes sense if you think about it. As viewers, it's best to just go with it.

As far as what those promo images show, since this takes place post-canary backdoor pilot, I can totally see Mia going back in time after getting back her pre-Crisis memories to attend her dad's funeral. Time travel might just be a thing now sense we see an un-aged Laurel and Dinah in 2040 with Mia. What's interesting to note is that both Moira and Emiko are alive, meaning Ollie changed things for the better for those 2, but it still shows Roy with the prosthetic arm in costume. I do wonder if the major players who helped Ollie prepare for the Crisis (Thea, Roy, etc) and Felicity will be getting their pre-Crisis memories back as well.

But COIE actually made this an important plot point. They narratively explained why it's all one Earth and why some things are combined and others aren't. Sure, the meta reason for COIE was for housecleaning, but Marv Wolfman and George Perez didn't treat it as if that's all it was. They provided in-verse explanations. They didn't go some weird mid-ground hybridized bastard of convenience route like Didio and gang did for the New 52 or what they did with this live action Crisis.

 

[vantheman77]

Oliver is basically the Earth-2 Superman of this TV universe. Him and Felicity, along with the Monitor, in the afterlife dimension is what Earth-2 Superman, Lois Lane, Superboy-Prime, and Alex Luthor were doing in the Crisis comics.

 

[fan4stic]

I don’t see why Earth 1 Laurel couldn’t come back. It’s not like there’s some rule that there can only be one version at a time. Earth 2 Laurel could still go do the spin off while Earth 1 Laurel have a normal life with Tommy

the finale really was a representation of the show's history.

 

[herolee10]

I can appreciate the series finale for what it was, which is how I would also describe my sentiments towards the show as a whole.

For better or for worse, I feel like "Arrow" will always hold a special place in the list of properties that helped revolutionize the comic book genre. Although we had gotten "Smallville" for the previous 10 years before "Arrow" had debuted onto television, there had not been a real costumed/vigilante show (based on a comic book superhero) since the 90's (Lois and Clark).

Now granted, I still don't understand the logic that went into bringing back certain characters from the grave and other things. Moira stated to Thea that she believed the reason why Robert wasn't revived was because Oliver couldn't revive anyone that had a part in shaping his personality. However, that doesn't make sense since both Tommy and Moira's deaths had also played a huge role in his journey as well.

And you'd think that Roy would be a little irritated that Oliver couldn't have prevented Roy from losing his arm in the new timeline.lol

Frankly, it just sounds like the writers wanted to have their piece of the treasure knowing that they wouldn't have to worry about explaining their creative decisions since the show was coming to a close.

 

[Flash525]

As series finals go, this wasn’t too bad a send off, although I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t a little disappointed by a few things; the lack of Clark Kent and Slade Wilson at the funeral for one. Clark was involved in Crisis, and fought alongside Oliver, and there’s little reason to believe that Oliver and Slade didn’t make up in this new universe as they did the previous one.

Regarding Laurel, I’m honestly perplexed why they couldn’t have just made her a new Laurel, a combination of E1 & E2. It’s heavily stated here that she’s the E2 Laurel, except in this new universe, E2 (her origin) doesn’t exist, so where is she supposed to have come from?

I’m not convinced either that Ollie (as the spectre) chose who to bring back, and who not too, else he’d have surely brought back the likes of Ronnie Raymond, Henry Allen and Samantha(?); Williams biological mother. I’d rather believe that these resurrections were a convenient side effect of the new multiverse birth.

The ending with Diggle could mean big things, though honestly I’m confused as to why the Green Lantern series is implied to be taking place in another universe; if they’re going to introduce the GLC on Earth-Prime, can’t the series take place here too?

Is anyone else seemingly annoyed by the fact that everyone seems to have dual memories now, and remembers both versions of their lives? Didn’t Alex specifically say on Supergirl that John didn’t want to pass the knowledge on to more than a select few. Why does everyone suddenly know?

It’s gotta be said too, but that’s a lame afterlife. I’d at least have expected a paradise island or something, or a truly alien environment, not a building in Star City.

 

[Dr.]

So… Sara time-travelled to 2040 to bring Mia back to 2020 for Ollie’s funeral. And Sara said she “time portal-ed.” Then, when it was time to return to 2040, Mia activated a “time portal” (presumably, she borrowed one from Sara ). Question: Is this established tech on Legends? I know they’ve used portals to travel from place to place (their version of a Star Trek transporter). But for actual time travel, I thought the Waverider was necessary. No?

...

The finale didn’t explain how the younger versions of Laurel and Dinah end up in 2040. I guess that’ll be covered later - if/when the spinoff series happens.

...

Also: I admit I was momentarily confused by the Diggle/“meteorite” scene. Given the prior teases about Diggle being a Green Lantern in another reality, the “green glow in a box” was very likely an Easter egg along those lines. But then I considered whether “green glow” might be… kryptonite? After all, they made a special point of mentioning Diggle’s move to Metropolis. Thus, there was a possible connection between the “meteorite” and his relocation to Superman’s hometown. Indeed, without the allusion to Metropolis, I probably wouldn’t have made this connection. I wonder why there was no POV shot of a power ring in the box - which would have dispelled any ambiguity. “Legal” reasons? Not allowed to use the symbol?