WARNING: This article contains SPOILERS for the Arrow season 7 finale.
The Arrow season 7 finale, "You Have Saved This City," certainly lived up to its title. As promised, the heroes of Star City saved the day at two different points in time, establishing Oliver Queen's legacy of compassion, courage, selflessness, and loyalty.
In the not-too-distant future of Star City 2040, a new generation of heroes led the charge against the corrupt corporation Galaxy One. Having found a potential weakness in the Archer artificial intelligence that threatened to establish Big Brother style surveillance on a global scale, the children of Oliver Queen, Felicity Smoak, Rene Ramirez, and John Diggle moved to destroy Archer's server and the physical wall that separated Star City from a gentrified Glades. Though the heroes were successful and also disabled the Zeta Project that decimated Star City's vigilantes, it was implied that this was only one major battle won and not the end of the war.
The victory in the modern day Star City was similarly Pyrrhic in nature. Team Arrow was largely successful in stopping the Ninth Circle from releasing a bacterial weapon on Star City and was able to clear their names after being framed as terrorists. Unfortunately, Oliver's reconciliation with his estranged half-sister Emiko Queen, who had led the Ninth Circle in destroying Star City, came only after she was betrayed by her own people and fatally wounded. With her dying breath, Emiko warned Oliver that the Ninth Circle knew that his wife was pregnant and would not rest until they were all dead.
This spurred Oliver and Felicity to leave Star City for somewhere they could raise their daughter in safety. The two heroes were happy for a time, until one night when the Monitor appeared in their living room and told Oliver that it was time for him to fulfill his end of the bargain they had during the Elseworlds event. This meant that Oliver would have to leave his family to help the Monitor prepare for the battle to save the Multiverse from the upcoming Crisis on Infinite Earths that the Monitor has foreseen. Yet even with Green Arrow's fate apparently sealed, there are still many questions regarding the future of Arrow and what we can expect to see in Arrow season 8.
10. How Does Mia Fight The Zeta Soldiers So Easily?
As "You Have Saved This City" opened, the future vigilantes of Star City had seemingly been captured by a team of Galaxy One's Zeta soldiers. Things looked grim until Mia Smoak suddenly threw a knife into the head of one of the soldiers, disabling it as she began to fight back. In the battle that followed, Mia had a far easier time battling the soldiers than her allies, who noted the Archer AI controlling Zeta seemed to know how they were going to attack even before they did.
While it was never directly stated, the answer for why Mia fared so well may be an accidental side-effect of Felicity Smoak's paranoia. Later in the episode, Felicity explained that when she designed the original Archer program, she programmed in a backdoor that prevented it from being able to detect anyone who had a combination of her and Oliver Queen's DNA. If this prevented Archer from being able to identify Mia when she went through a security checkpoint into the Glades, it may also have prevented Archer from being able to analyze her combat style. This didn't make Mia invincible, however, as she was nearly overpowered facing multiple Zeta soldiers at once.
9. Who Is Beatrice?
After Oliver confronts Emiko at the top of what had been the Queen Consolidated building, they are ambushed by a squadron of Ninth Circle agents, led by the man called Virgil and a woman whom Emiko recognizes as Beatrice. It's Beatrice who declares that Emiko has been cast out of the Ninth Circle, as the rest of the leadership has grown weary of indulging her vendetta against the Queen family and Star City. It's also Beatrice who throws the knife that fatally wounds Emiko, leading to her demise.
An original character unique to the Arrowverse, Beatrice's name nonetheless fits the scheme that the Ninth Circle used for naming their leaders after characters in the narrative poem The Divine Comedy in the Green Arrow comics. The character of Beatrice was based on poet Dante Alighieri's ideal woman and appeared in The Divine Comedy as his guide to the nine spheres of Heaven after he saw the nine circles of Hell. There's some irony that Emiko's redemption is brought about by a villain who takes her name from a fictional angelic being.
8. Will Bronze Tiger Join Team Arrow?
Earlier in Arrow season 7, Ben "Bronze Tiger" Turner joined forces with Oliver Queen to save the guards and innocent inmates during Ricardo Diaz's assault on Slabside Penitentiary in "The Slabside Redemption." In thanks, the newly released Oliver promised to do what he could to see about getting Turner released from prison early for good behavior. The Arrow season 7 finale reveals that Oliver was true to his word, as a recently-paroled Ben Turner stepped in to help calm the crowds during the Ninth Circle's first attempt at releasing their bacterial weapon.
Turner strapped on his claws once again to help Team Arrow in stopping the Ninth Circle and was offered a place among them by John Diggle near the episode's end. He turned it down, saying that he wanted to focus on spending time with his son, Connor - a sentiment John Diggle could appreciate as the father of a young boy himself. It seems likely, however, that the Bronze Tiger will be forced to fight again, as we know from the flashforwards to 2040 that Connor is eventually adopted by John Diggle.
7. Will Roy Harper Ever Rejoin Thea Queen?
As the heroes of Star City part ways near the episode's end, Roy Harper is asked if he plans to reunite with his girlfriend, Thea Queen, and rejoin her in her quest to destroy every Lazarus Pit on Earth. Roy says that he thinks he needs some time alone to get his head together first and to think of a way to atone for his murdering two security guards while in a blood-rage induced by his own resurrection in the Lazarus Pit. When we next see Roy chronologically in the year 2040, he's living alone as a hermit on the island of Lian Yu. This begs the question of whether or not he ever does wind up reuniting with the love of his life sometime during the next two decades.
6. What Is The Mark of Four?
As the team reflects on what they have gone through, Oliver speaks of his four pillars of heroism and how the people who took up his cause have come to reflect those virtues. This inspires him to create a symbol for the inner circle of Star City's heroes - a Mark of Four they can use to remind themselves of their unique bond and use to signal one another when they are in trouble, no matter where they go. While the Mark of Four and the Four Pillars have been mentioned before on Arrow, it has been some time since the symbol was revealed in a flashforward in the Arrow season 7 episode "Due Process." It was here that Dinah Drake first revealed her Mark of Four tattoo to William Clayton and explained the meaning of the symbol to him.
5. Is Star City 2040 Being Set-Up As A Spin-Off?
The heroes of Star City undergo a similar parting of ways in the flashfowards, as Felicity Smoak, Rene Ramirez, Dinah Drake, and Roy Harper agree to take the blame for the destruction of the wall between the Glades and Star City and go into hiding. Dinah officially names Zoe Ramirez as the new leader of the Canary Network, as Felicity tells William Clayton and Mia Smoak that they did their father proud in saving his city. Along with Connor Hawke, this seems to have set up a new Team Arrow to protect a Star City that is more wild and lawless than ever. While a spin-off series focused on the future of Star City in the same vein as Batman Beyond has not been officially announced yet, showrunner Beth Schwartz has been quoted as of saying that Arrow's production team "would love to see (the future heroes) go on in some capacity after the show’s over" (via CBR).
4. How Did Roy Harper Wind Up On Lian Yu In 2040?
As the heroes of Star City 2040 are parting ways, William Clayton thanks Roy Harper for everything he did to help him. Roy, in turn, thanks William for getting him off of the island of Lian Yu. This reminds William that Roy never got around to telling him the story of how he wound up there before William found him in Arrow season 7 premiere. Roy quickly changes the subject, saying that it is a long story. Perhaps that long story will be told in Arrow season 8?
Related: Here’s The Perfect Way To End Arrow Season 8
3. Why Do All Of Star City's Heroes Go Into Hiding For 20 Years?
When the older heroes of Star City declare that they are going off the grid where Galaxy One can't find them, they note that they already spent the last two decades in hiding and are rather used to it at this point. While we know that Felicity went into hiding to protect herself and Mia from the Ninth Circle and Roy Harper was probably wanted for the murder of the two security guards, there is no clear reason why Dinah Drake and Rene Ramirez would have had to go underground, since Team Arrow was cleared of terrorism charges in 2019. Doubtlessly this is another mystery that will be addressed in Arrow season 8.
2. Where Does the Monitor Take Felicity?
The final scene of the Arrow season 7 finale, "You Have Saved This City", shows the elder Felicity meeting with the Monitor in 2040, after telling Mia and William that it's time for her "to go on a journey of my own" while visiting Oliver Queen's tombstone one last time. The Monitor asks Felicity if she's certain she wants to do this, as there is no coming back from where he's taking her. Felicity confirms that she's ready, saying that she has "waited a very long time to see him" while twisting her wedding ring, suggesting that the him in question is Oliver Queen.
The episode ends with the Monitor opening a breach and walking through it with Felicity. Their destination isn't spelled out and seems to be entirely left up to the imagination of the viewer. Does the Monitor take Felicity to Heaven or some other dimension where she and Oliver can enjoy eternity together? Or perhaps he takes her back in time to see Oliver in his final moments so that he can die at peace, knowing for certain that his wife and children do survive because of his sacrifice. Whatever the case, it seems unlikely audiences will get a definitive answer next season, as Emily Bett Rickards has said that she won't return for Arrow season 8.
1. What Will Season 8 of Arrow Focus On?
For all that "You Have Saved This City" does to tie up the loose ends of Arrow season 7, it does surprisingly little to establish what we can expect to see in season 8. Will the show focus on Oliver and the Monitor traveling around the multiverse, gathering an army for the 2019 crossover event Crisis on Infinite Earths? Or will the show focus on John Diggle and the rest of Star City's heroes carrying on in Oliver Queen's absence? The only thing that seems certain, apart from Felicity Smoak's absence, is that the upcoming season will deliver a truly epic ending to a revolutionary superhero show.