It’s official, Arrow will be ending after Crisis on Infinite Earths. Stephen Amell announced the end of the long-running CW show today on his official Twitter. Arrow will have a shortened run of 10 episodes before ending during the Crisis on Infinite Earths crossover already announced for this fall.
The 10-episode run puts the show’s end right alongside the Crisis crossover. This matches up with what we saw Elseworlds this last fall (prepare for light Elsewords spoilers in the next few sentences); Oliver stepped into the Monitor’s pocket dimension to make a deal, and that deal went down off-screen. Since then, we’ve been theorizing that Oliver would sacrifice himself in the Crisis, giving his life to save Flash and/or Supergirl.
In the original mid-80s Crisis on Infinite Earths event, Supergirl and Flash both died, and Barry Allen stayed that way for over two decades before coming back to life. During the Elseworlds crossover, we saw both heroes pushing themselves to their absolute limits before the others managed to stop Dr. Destiny’s attempts to re-write reality in his image, hinting at that fate for the characters.
This shows a huge commitment by the CW and from Amell himself to the Crisis storyline, to the DC TV shows, and to Arrow in particular. 10 episodes is not a traditional run of TV, which usually sticks to half or full season runs of 13 or 26 episodes. A 10 episode run almost makes it more like an event series at this point.
Talking on Facebook Live, Amell said that his first inkling that he’d be finishing his run on the show came toward the end of season 6.
“I’ve always been a fan of television shows that not only don’t overstay their welcome, but end in a manner that really packs a punch. It had always been my hope that we would know when we were going to finish this journey and not limp to the finish line, so to speak,” Amell said as he choked back tears.
Amell thanked a number of people involved with the show, and said that the decision to end the show at the end of the 10-episode run has been a very mutual decision between him, creators Greg Berlanti and Marc Guggenheim, and other principals involved with the show.
“You can’t be a vigilante forever,” Amell wrote in his Twitter post. On Facebook, he finished out by saying, “it’s been a pretty good run. It’s no Supernatural, but it’s been a pretty good run.
