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Shealyn Scott is a Senior Writer at Screen Rant. She has been writing for the site since 2024, focused on network, reality, streaming, and classic television. A creative writer, journalist, and lover of the written word in all its forms, Shealyn enjoys deconstructing scenes from her favorite shows, using context clues and historical precedent to predict major plot points (which, due to her successful track record, has sparked rumors of clairvoyancy). As an award-winning student journalist, Shealyn spent her college years advocating for the humanities while studying English Literature. Her love of storytelling propelled her to expand her degree with minors in Writing and History, believing life to be a mere collection of stories that can be framed in as many ways as a movie scene. As a Senior member of the TV Team, Shealyn treats the series she covers like books, analyzing every line, camera angle, and lighting choice. Thankfully, her personal mission statement lines up perfectly with Screen Rant: every creative work deserves just as much thought from the viewer as it received from its creator.

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Arrow ended in 2020 with a devastating finale, but discourse continues years later— and Stephen Amell chimed in with the perfect solution. Arrow first premiered in 2012 as the CW’s first foray into superhero dramas following Smallville, starting off DC’s Arrowverse with a bang. Led by Stephen Amell as Oliver Queen, the series remains one of the most iconic, if not accurate, comic book adaptations.

After eight seasons of thrilling adventures and divisive risks, Arrow’s series finale ended on a sour note, with the aftermath of Oliver Queen’s death leaving fans bereft. The disappointing end to an era kicked off a domino effect for the CW’s superhero franchise, and the Arrowverse ended with The Flash in 2023— or Superman & Lois in 2024, which technically wasn’t an Earth-Prime show.

Stephen Amell Is Right About Arrow’s Ending

The Last Season Deserved More

Stephen Amell said it best at the 2025 Motor City Comic Con: Arrow needed a longer final season to be a proper sendoff for the character. Seasons 1–6 had 23 episodes each, while season 7 had 22, offering Arrow ample room to flesh out characters, weave in necessary subplots, and set up future twists well in advance.

Conversely, the final season of Arrow was only 10 episodes long. The bulk of Arrow season 8 was mere build-up for the colossal crossover in episode 8, and episode 9 didn’t feature Oliver Queen at all, as it was a backdoor pilot for Green Arrow & The Canaries. Sadly, with such a tight timeline, Arrow couldn’t properly pace its farewell season.

Crisis On Infinite Earths Got In The Way Of A Proper Arrow Finale

The Mass Crossover Left No Breathing Room For Arrow

Arrow’s truncated final season could have had a fulfilling ending, but not while the* Crisis On Infinite Earths*saga was included. Based on the 1980s comic of the same name, the “Crisis On Infinite Earths” pentalogy brought together every title in the Arrowverse for a life-or-death mission: saving the multiverse and rebooting each show’s timeline.

While “Crisis On Infinite Earths” was arguably the best Arrowverse crossover, it irrefutably disrupted Arrow’s last season. Killing off the main character during a crossover event is an age-old faux pas, but Arrow also failed to give Oliver Queen a satisfying sendoff. Furthermore,** the cosmic threat of “Crisis On Infinite Earths” was never Arrow’s specialty**, and it showed.

Arrow’s Final Season Should’ve Been A Street-Level Story

Oliver Queen Didn’t Need To Become A Multiverse Martyr

Many iconic Arrowverse villains went beyond city limits for the final showdown, but Arrow should have stuck to its roots while creating season 8. At heart, Oliver Queen’s character is a quintessential street-level hero, and his focus should never have left the crime and corruption of Star City.

Since Green Arrow was created, there’s been a fundamentally political edge to his vigilantism, harking back to the Robin Hood archetype. To honor his history, Arrow should have made Oliver Queen’s last hurrah a smaller-scale fight to preserve his legacy and protect his city— not from a crumbling multiverse, but from a grounded, meaningful villain— as a bittersweet swan song.

Release Date 2013 - 2020-00-00

Network The CW

Showrunner Andrew Kreisberg

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Stephen Amell

Oliver Queen / Green Arrow

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David Ramsey

John Diggle / Spartan

Directors James Bamford, John Behring, Glen Winter, Michael Schultz, Wendey Stanzler, Laura Belsey, Gregory Smith, Guy Norman Bee, Nick Copus, Jesse Warn, Gordon Verheul, Antonio Negret, Kristin Windell, Thor Freudenthal, Rob Hardy, Eagle Egilsson, Dermott Downs, Joel Novoa, Kevin Tancharoen, Tara Miele, Ben Hernandez Bray, Mairzee Almas, Alexandra La Roche, Andi Armaganian

Writers Oscar Balderrama, Sarah Tarkoff, Speed Weed, Keto Shimizu, Rebecca Bellotto, Drew Z. Greenberg, Jill Blankenship, Deric A. Hughes, Benjamin Raab, Erik Oleson, Lana Cho, Tonya Kong, Moira Kirland, Rebecca Rosenberg, Bryan Q. Miller, Jenny Lynn, Maya Houston, A.C. Bradley, Barbara Bloom, Mark Bemesderfer, Nolan Dunbar, Gabrielle Stanton, Elisa Delson, Marv Wolfman

Franchise(s) Arrowverse

Genres Crime, Drama, Action, Science Fiction

Creator(s) Greg Berlanti, Marc Guggenheim, Andrew Kreisberg