Plot
With the Crisis over, Oliver Queen's friends and family gather in Star City to mourn his passing and celebrate a life well-lived and a new dawn in Star City. As what remains of Team Arrow contemplates how they will go on without the man who brought them together, they are forced to join together once more to save William Clayton after he is abducted by an old enemy of Green Arrow, who is out for revenge.
Influences
Crisis on Infinite Earths and Green Arrow: Quiver. (Oliver Queen in Heaven)
Goofs
Rene is said to be favored to win the election for Mayor in April 2020, yet in 2040 Mayor Ramirez is running for a third term according to the Green Arrow & The Canaries pilot. It seems unlikely that Star City's mayors serve ten-year terms. (There's no guarantee Rene will win in 2020. Also, it could be a different Mayor Ramirez.)
Lyla Michaels is said to have been promoted to a new job in Metropolis. What's higher than Director of ARGUS? (It's likely a more powerful position in the Department of Defense not directly affiliated with ARGUS.)
Performances
The entire ensemble all have great moments, but the man holding it all together so all the tangents work is David Ramsey as John Diggle.
Artistry
The script is a work of art, with lots of nods to the show's history and many great character moments.
The flashback fight-scene of Oliver fighting John Byrne's men is a fitting capstone for the series' amazing action scenes.
Trivia
The episode title has a double-meaning, with a fadeout being the technical term for the slow shift to darkness before the credits at the end of a movie or television show and a part of a bow.
The title card for the episode features all 7 unique arrow-heads used over the course of the series.
The human trafficker Oliver goes after in the flashbacks of this episode, who later kidnaps William Clayton in the modern day is named John Byrne. This is a tribute to comic writer and artist John Byrne, who is perhaps most famous for his work with Chris Claremont on X-Men and for overseeing the reveamp of Superman following Crisis on Infinite Earths.
When Roy proposes to Thea, he does it on an industrial building with a sign in the back declaring that it is Van Wayne Enterprises. This is a nod to Van Wayne, a cousin of Bruce Wayne and one of the main characters of the short-lived series Powerless, which was set in a comedic version of the DC Comics universe. This would seem to affirm that the same characters (or at least Van Wayne) exist in the post-Crisis Arrowverse.
Roy and Thea make mention of Kord Industries - the oft-referred to business run by Ted Kord (aka The Blue Beetle). Brandon Routh was originally meant to play Ted Kord instead of Ray Palmer in Arrow season 3, but the rights for Blue Beetle were tied up in a live-action show based around the Jaime Reyes incarnation of the character.
The penultimate sequence in which John Diggle is knocked off his feet and finds a glowing green object where he thought a meteor had landed is a nod to a long-teased fan theory regarding John Diggle someday becoming a Green Lantern.
Technobabble
Curtis runs a quad-grid search tasked to a keyhole satellite array to track William.
Felicity implanted a subdermal tracking device in William's arm.
When fighting with escrima, it is important to use your whole body as the power comes from your hips.
Dialogue Triumphs
Oliver: My name is Oliver Queen. After 5 years in hell I returned home with only one goal; to save my city. For 8 years, I've fought alongside brave men and women striving for justice, but then a Crisis came, and I had to become someone else. I had to become something else. I made the ultimate sacrifice, which helped birth an entirely new universe. Now my friends and family will have to go on without me, and although I have become a Spectre, there is a part of me that will always be The Green Arrow.
Rene: It's a hell of a legacy. Not just a city of heroes, a world of heroes.
Wild Dog: So how are things? It's been a while.
Ragman: Yeah. Well, a while is what it took for these rags to work again. Since then, I've been fighting for justice.
Wild Dog: To honor your father?
Ragman: To honor Oliver.
Wild Dog: We've had our differences over the years.
Ragman: Yeah, I assumed.
Wild Dog: Why?
Ragman: Of everyone, you're the most like him.
Mia: If Oliver Queen didn't kill you, than neither will I.
Oliver: Plenty of people in this book that deserve to die, plain and simple, but probably not everyone. Let's consider Mr. John Byrne to be proof of concept.
Diggle: That people can be redeemed?
Oliver: That one day I'll be able to trust you.
Quentin: For a long time I hated Oliver Queen. I blamed him for the death of my youngest daughter, I blamed him for the violence in my city, I interrogated him, I hunted him, persecuted him. I've never been more wrong in my life. Oliver Queen wasn't just a hero. He was a good man. He was an honorable person. The fact that he didn't start out that way makes him, in my book, even more honorable. He stands as a reminder to all of us that anyone can change. So will this.
(The cloth coverings behind Quentin are pulled aside, revealing a bronze statue of Green Arrow.)
Tommy: So you're from another Earth, is that it?
Black Siren: I know it's a lot to take in.
Tommy: Well, I just found out there's a reality where I was dead, so that's the curve I'm grading on these days. The Laurel of, well, this Earth, um... She was my wife.
Black Siren: So it must be strange seeing me.
Tommy: Ha! Yeah. Well, strange enough to blow the curve. (smiling) But there's something nice about it, too.
John Diggle: The Oliver that I met 8 years ago is not the one that we say good-bye to today. Oliver always told me that in order to save his city, he had to become someone else, he had to become something else. I always thought that meant becoming the Green Arrow, but today, I realized that meant becoming a better man. The best man he knew how to be. And he took all of us with him on that journey. He changed everything. Oliver brought heroes into the world, he inspired heroes, he inspired all of us here. I was his brother, and Oliver Queen was mine.
(We see John Diggle strapping his children into their car seats and kissing Lyla. She gets in their SUV and drives off, leaving John at their house with one moving van left to drive.)
John Diggle (Voice-Over): Of course, life will go on. It always does, but how, what twists and turns it will take, I can't say.
(We see Mia Queen, standing before the statue of Green Arrow. She walks through a time portal into her bedroom in 2040.)
John Diggle (Voice-Over): I don't know what the future holds
(We see Digg getting ready to get into his van when he stops to look at a shooting star. A meteor crashes into the ground a dozen feet away from him, throwing him back against the van.)
John Diggle (Voice-Over): Except to say to expect the unexpected.
(We see Rene Ramirez in his campaign headquarters, looking at one of his political posters.)
John Diggle (Voice-Over): Oliver may be gone, but his mission endures.
(We see Dinah Drake getting on her motorcycle and driving out of Star City.)
John Diggle (Voice-Over):That mission lives on, Oliver lives on in the people he inspired. Some will take that mission to the rest of the world. Maybe even beyond that.
(We see Digg pulling himself off the ground and approaching the crater. He finds a box, which he picks up and opens. Something inside it glows with a green light.)
John Diggle (Voice-Over): Because if the past 8 years has shown us anything It's that this universe is far bigger than any of us could have dared imagine. Even if it is a little less bright without him in it.
Felicity: Not to complain. I just thought that the afterlife would look a little less like your old office.
Oliver: It's my mom's office. I wanted to be where I first saw you.
Felicity: Well, that would be in the I. T. Department, seven floors down.
Oliver: You sure?
(Cut to a flashback of Oliver Queen hiding around a corner in that same office years earlier.)
Felicity: (looking at a picture of Oliver Queen) You're cute. It's too bad you're, you know, dead, which is obviously a lot worse for you than it is for me.
(Cut back to the present. Oliver smiles at the woman he loves.)
Oliver: It's a long story. Lucky for us, we have all the time in the world for me to tell it to you.
(The two look out the window of the office together. It is a beautiful sunny day. All is right in the world.)
Continuity
The opening scene shows an alternate take on Moira Queen's death in 220. This time, Oliver is able to free his hands and stop Slade Wilson from killing Moira Queen with a sword.
It is revealed that Oliver's influence on shaping the post-Crisis Arrowverse allowed him to prevent the deaths of various people, including Moira Queen. Moira talks about how she apparently died in an interview for a documentary.
The documentary filmmaker from 712 has yet to finish her film in the post-Crisis reality. She is now turning Emerald Archer into a memorial film about Oliver Queen.
Dinah, Moira, Rene and John Diggle are all interviewed about Oliver for the documentary.
Crime in Star City disappeared virtually overnight post-Crisis. This has left Team Arrow with little to do.
Digg, Dinah, Rene, Roy and Black Siren meet in the Arrow bunker for a memorial wake. They drink Oliver's vodka and toast him.
Rene is apparently running for mayor now, instead of the city council, which he was running for pre-Crisis in 804.
It is revealed that Quentin Lance is alive again in the post-Crisis universe and that his term as Mayor ends in April. He is pushing for Rene to replace him.
Quentin has offered Dinah the job of Chief of Police in Star City
It has been one month since the Crisis ended as this episode opens.
In a flashback scene to eight years earlier, Oliver has just killed a man named Jimmy Tarallo who had 22 henchmen armed with machetes. Diggle tries to convince Oliver to take him into the field, but he refuses.
Oliver's next target is John Byrne: a beer company CEO who is using his shipping trucks to facilitate human trafficking.
In 2040, Mia has a dream of Robert Queen killing himself in front of Oliver Queen on their life raft after the Queen's Gambit sunk.
Sara Lance arrives in Mia's bedroom, having traveled via Time Portal, to take her to Oliver's funeral in 2020.
Digg, Roy, Rene, Dinah and Black Siren give each other The Mark of Four tattoo first seen in 708.
Roy says he imagines the funeral will be awkward with both of Oliver's sisters there. This establishes that Emiko Queen is still alive in the post-Crisis timeline. She originally died in 722.
In the flashback, Byrne is discovered to be employing Black Armada - a private security firm made up entirely of former Special Forces soldiers. He pays them $1 million monthly.
Diggle encourages Oliver not to kill John Byrne but to bring him in alive.
Mia talks with Dinah in the Arrowcave and reveals that, for her, it's been a few weeks since William was kidnapped in 809. She's had no luck tracking him down so far.
William is abducted from his grandparents' home in Central City.
Felicity, Curtis Holt, Rory Regan, Roy, Thea, Lyla, Digg, Laurel, Sara, Mia, Dinah and Rene pair off to search Star City for William.
Roy proposes to Thea, saying he's realized he can't live without her after his death and resurrection.
Rory Regan is fighting crime as Ragman again, as a way of honoring Oliver. He doesn't specify how long he's been doing it, but apparently his magic costume has repaired itself since he was forced into retirement in 512.
Rory says he isn't surprised that Rene and Oliver fought the most, saying that out of everyone in Team Arrow they are the most alike.
Mia is the one who locates William and John Byrne.
John Byrne spent 8 years in Iron Heights Penitentiary. He was apparently the first person Oliver Queen spared after deciding to stop killing every person on the list of people his father gave him.
John Byrne tries to provoke Mia until killing him. She refuses to do so.
Amateur video footage of captures Mia capturing John Byrne. Dinah repeats what she said earlier about being sure Oliver would be proud of her.
Felicity avoids approaching Mia for fear of saying something awkward. Ironically, Mia avoids her mother for the same reason.
Moira apparently likes Roy Harper much more in the post-Crisis reality.
Thea accepts Roy's marriage proposal.
Black Siren has a breakdown talking to Quentin, saying she doesn't understand why she's still alive and all these other people came back to life but not the Laurel Lance of Earth-1. Quentin says that Oliver didn't "fix" her because she didn't need fixing.
Diggle, Dinah and Rene shut down the Arrow bunker. Dinah is the one who flips the switch for the power as they leave it for the last time.
Dinah decides not to take the job of Chief of Police. Instead, she's going to find another city that could use a hero like the Black Canary.
Diggle and Lyla are moving to Metropolis after the funeral. Lyla has been promoted to a new position there.
A candlelight vigil is held for Oliver Queen the night before his funeral. Quentin Lance unveils a bronze statue of the Green Arrow, with a plaque that reads "He saved this city." This is the same statue Mia and William met at in 809.
Before the funeral, while visiting Robert Queen's memorial, Thea asks why Oliver couldn't bring Robert Queen back from the dead. Moira speculates that Oliver could only change those events he was involved in directly and only change them so far. For better or worse, Robert Queen had to die for Oliver to become Green Arrow.
Emiko meets with Thea and Moira for the first time. Moira welcomes Emiko into the family.
Tommy Merlyn is revealed to be alive in the post-Crisis reality. He was also married to Earth-1 Laurel Lance before her death. He talks to Black Siren and says that seeing her is weird but nice.
Nyssa introduces Sara Lance to Talia as her beloved.
Mia and Felicity do meet and hug.
Barry Allen and Kara Danvers attend the funeral in their civilian identities.
Oliver's body was never found. A casket full of mementos was buried in front of the tombstone erected in his honor, next to Robert Queen's memorial behind Queen Manor.
Diggle gives the eulogy at Oliver's funeral.
Dinah leaves Star City on her motorcycle. We see that the main freeway out of Star City has been renamed in Oliver Queen's honor.
Mia returns to 2040 through a time portal.
Before leaving Star City, John Diggle was knocked off his feet by a meteor crashing near him. Once he got near the crater, he found a box containing something that glowed with a green light.
20 years in the future, The Monitor fulfills his bargain and guides Felicity Smoak to the afterlife, as in the final scene of 722.
Felicity meets Oliver Queen in a place that looks just like his mother's office. When she asks why the afterlife looks like that, he says he wanted to see her as she was when he first saw her. When she says that they first met in the IT Department at Queen Consolidated seven floors down in 103. However, Oliver says that isn't the first time he saw her, as he thinks about seeing her while being undercover at Queen Consolidated in the flashbacks of 314.
Location
The Afterlife
Untelevised Adventures
Much of the history of Arrow has apparently been rewritten in the post-Crisis reality. For instance, one wonders how the events of William Clayton's being revealed as Oliver Queen's son played out with Moira still alive or if Laurel Lance developed the same drug problem she did in Season 2 without Tommy Merlyn's death weighing her down.
The Bottom Line
A fitting conclusion that brings everything to a happy ending for most of the supporting players, while still leaving ample room for development of many of these characters elsewhere in the Arrowverse. Some characters are given short shrift than others and some subplots remain untouched, such as Talia and Thea forming a new, heroically inclined League of Assassins. Still, the possibilities left open by Diggle and Lyla moving to Metropolis and the plot with Mia Smoak in the future offer many avenues for exploration. The Queen is dead. Long live The Queen.
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