History Arrow / SeasonEight

* KillEmAll: The Anti-Monitor annihilates Earth-2 at the end of the season premiere. Laurel is the only one of the Earth-2 denizens who manage to escape its fate, aside from the Earth-2 doppelgangers that were already living on Earth-1 due to the events of [[TheFlash/SeasonTwo Season 2]] of [[Series/TheFlash2014 ''The Flash'']].

* SomethingCompletelyDifferent: Overlaps with GenreShift. Arrow has always been the most grounded of the Arrowverse shows, and hasn't really delved into the ScienceFantasy natures of the multiverse and time travel like The Flash or Legends outside of the annual crossovers and Earth-2 Laurel's presence from Season 5 onwards. However, this season revolves around Oliver's plot to assist the Monitor in preventing the Crisis from wiping out all of existence, and Oliver has to travel to alternate universes to do so, starting with Earth-2 in the premiere episode. He sticks around long enough to see Earth-2 get wiped from existence, which also establishes that the stakes are much higher than something like the Undertaking or Ricardo Diaz taking control of the criminal underworld of Star City - this time, all of existence is at stake.

* PoorlyDisguisedPilot: "Green Arrow and the Canaries" is the backdoor pilot for a potential spin-off starring Mia, Laurel, and Dinah.

** In "Leap of Faith", Oliver finishes up his sidequest with Thea and Talia and says good-bye to his sister for what is probably the last time, and his story for the episode ends on a fulfilling note. Until it cuts back to the flashforwards, where [[LeeroyJenkins Mia]] and Neo-Team Arrow storm the Deathstrokes' lair with [[RealityEnsues predictable results]] - JJ kills Zoe, leading Connor to outright try to kill JJ, which he would have successfully done if he, Mia and William weren't suddenly time-displaced to 2019 with no warning whatsoever, coming face-to-face with their parents. Particularly notable for Mia, since she never had the chance to meet Oliver.

** The end of the flashforwards in Season 7 had the wall outside the Glades destroyed with hope to rebuild Star City and the new team of Mia, William, Connor and Zoe to help it do so. However, the flashforwards in the season premiere quickly establish that the city isn't doing great in the [[RealityEnsues socioeconomic consequences of destroying a wall that acts as the main barrier between the upper class from the lower class]].

** Oliver's arc in the first season was about becoming someone/something else in order to save his city, though this changes over time as he spends more time crusading in Starling/Star City. For this season, Oliver again [[InsistentTerminology specifically]] refers to his mission as having to become someone/something else the same way he did in the first season.

* BackFromTheDead: Alternate universe counterparts of Tommy, Moira, Adrian and Malcolm show up in the season premiere, and while these versions of the characters were never technically dead, for all intents and purposes these characters are brought back from the dead in a narrative sense - though there are some notable differences between themselves and their prime universe counterparts. Becomes a case of BackForTheDead when Earth-2 gets [[DeaderThanDead erased from existence]] at the end of the episode.

* EarnYourHappyEnding: Oliver's sacrifice, along with the rebirth of the multiverse, also ensures Star City is finally - for at least two decades - at peace once he's gone.

* KilledOffForReal: The end of Season 7 has the Monitor appear to inform Oliver that he needs to die in the Crisis. Oliver himself is (for the most part) resigned to it throughout this season, despite urges from Diggle and Thea to ScrewDestiny. He finally meets this fate in ''Crisis on Infinite Earths, Part Four''.

** Tommy, Adrian, Malcolm, Moira, Thea, Talia, Athena, Roy, Anatoly, Quentin, Ragman, and Yao Fei all make appearances this season. Felicity, absent for most of the season, is set to return in the GrandFinale.

** "Purgatory", the last episode before Crisis, is set on Lian Yu.

** This season only has 10 episodes, less than half of any season prior. If you discount the ''Crisis on Infinite Earths'' crossover and the ''Green Arrow and The Canaries'' backdoor pilot, there's only 8. Not counting the two, every episode has been shown before the Christmas break, leaving only the GrandFinale.
** ''Green Arrow and The Canaries'' is the ''only'' episode in the entire series where Oliver does not appear. The real-life reason was because Creator/StephenAmell was contracted to appear in only nine episodes, though due to its nature as a backdoor pilot for Mia Smoak, you can instead see it as a PassingTheTorch moment; because Oliver's role has truly been passed to her, she is on her own.

After the Monitor tells him that he is fated to die in the Crisis on Infinite Earths, Oliver sets out on a multiverse-spanning mission to prevent the Anti-Monitor from wiping out all of existence in the upcoming crisis, and to save his family on Earth-1.

** In an alternate reality GroundhogDayLoop, Quentin survived the events of Season 6, but the entire point of the loop is for Quentin to die repeatedly [[spoiler:so Laurel and Oliver can make peace with his death, as well as for Oliver to make peace with his own.]]

* BigBad: The Anti-Monitor is in this seat for this season (as well as the Crisis itself), with probably the highest stakes of any Arrowverse season thus far. Zoom tried to erase every parallel universe sans Earth-1 in [[Series/TheFlash2014 The Flash]] [[TheFlash/SeasonTwo Season 2]], but the Anti-Monitor is implied to have the goal of erasing absolutely everything in existence, leaving literally ''nothing'' left. He destroys Earth-2 at the end of the season premiere, and more Earths die continually during the lead up to the Crisis.

** He sends Oliver on a FetchQuest to retrieve Earth-2 dwarfstar particles and a Chinese scientist in the first two episodes before Oliver goes rogue to find some answers about Mar Novu himself, and upon learning of an ancient League of Assassins prophecy, sets to work creating a weapon capable of killing the Monitor. [[spoiler:Lyla later informs Oliver that the antimatter weapon he's trying to create is a part of the Monitor's grand plan for the Crisis, and the weapon, along with the dwarfstar particles, are subsequently used to turn Lyla into Harbinger in time for the Crisis.]]
** Lyla is working for him, and he has her bring him the aforementioned scientist after Oliver neglects to do so. It's later revealed that [[spoiler:during Lyla's time in military service, the Monitor spared her from dying with the rest of her unit because she had a part to play in the Crisis.]]

** At the end of "Present Tense", he informs Laurel that he will restore Earth-2 if Laurel betrays Oliver, [[spoiler:though this is as a SecretTestOfCharacter to her]].
** He puts Oliver and Laurel in a GroundhogDayLoop in "Reset" for different reasons - [[spoiler:Laurel as a reward for not betraying Oliver the episode prior, and Oliver to allow him to come to the conclusion that his fate is unavoidable so he can make peace with it]].

* ContinuityLockout: [[spoiler:Oliver dies in an episode of [[Series/Supergirl2015 ''Supergirl'']], and subsequently becomes the Spectre over the course of the next two episodes of [[Series/CrisisOnInfiniteEarths2019 the Crisis]], meaning that he's gone through a significant character change between the seventh and eighth episodes of this season.]] This is, however, excusable since most of the season acts as a prelude for/part of Crisis just as much as it serves as the GrandFinale for ''Arrow''.
* DarkerAndEdgier: From the darkest and edgiest of the Arrowverse shows, even, driving home the bleak and apocalyptic nature of the upcoming Crisis on Infinite Earths. While the premiere is altogether a much lighter take on Season 1, with Oliver quickly learning to trust his allies (Diggle, Laurel and Earth-2 Adrian) and talking down Tommy from going through with the Earth-2 Undertaking, Earth-2 gets erased from existence in the closing moments of the episode by the Anti-Monitor, making everyone in that universe DeaderThanDead and all of Oliver's efforts to redeem Tommy ultimately pointless. Oliver also spends the entire season saddled with the knowledge that he dies in the Crisis, which considerably darkens his story arc.

* DrivingQuestion: The exact circumstances of Oliver's death in the Crisis can be seen as this. [[spoiler:He eventually performs a HeroicSacrifice in the first hour of Crisis, though notably it isn't actually the way that he was supposed to die in Crisis, according to the Monitor.]]

* ForegoneConclusion:
** Oliver has explicitly been told by the start of the season that he dies in the Crisis on Infinite Earths. This doesn't stop Diggle from trying to say ScrewDestiny and attempting to convince Oliver to do the same.

* GrandFinale: The entire season builds up to Crisis on Infinite Earths, which is where Oliver makes his fated last stand before, according to the Monitor, dying to save the multiverse. The season promises to be an epic sendoff to seven years of ''Arrow'', and has plenty of [[CallBack call-backs]] and payoff from Oliver's crusade as the Hood, the Arrow, and the Green Arrow to save his city - and now, the multiverse itself. The season premiere even starts back on Lian Yu, reminding us where Oliver came from and how far he's really come as a hero.
* GroundhogDayLoop: The plot of "Reset" is based on one in an alternate reality where Quentin survived being [[Recap/ArrowS6E23LifeSentence shot by Diaz]]. Oliver and Laurel both experience the loop, with Quentin's death being the [[TitleDrop reset]] point. [[spoiler:Laurel gets out of the loop once she has [[NeverGotToSayGoodbye finally had the chance to really say goodbye to Quentin]], though Oliver takes a bit longer to make his own peace with Quentin's death as well as [[FaceDeathWithDignity his own]] in the coming Crisis in order to escape the loop]].

* HeroicSacrifice: The whole season revolves around Oliver's impending death in Crisis on Infinite Earths, which, even if Oliver's death isn't exactly this, Oliver's choice to progress with the course of events that ''will'' lead to his death one way or another makes it this. [[spoiler:Eventually, this is exactly how Oliver goes out, fighting the Anti-Monitor's army by himself in order to buy enough time for approximately one billion Earth-38 civilians to evacuate to Earth-1 before their home universe is destroyed.]]

* HopeSpot: [[spoiler:When Oliver suspects that the Monitor is EvilAllAlong as of the end of "Leap of Faith", he stops referring to his death as fixed for a time, and for the next two episodes goes through a relatively straightforward ''Arrow'' plot of trying to create an antimatter weapon capable of killing the Monitor. However, at the end of "Reset", Lyla informs him that even this was part of the Monitor's plan, and yes, he is going to die in Crisis. In "Purgatory", he's resigned to his fate once again, and has made peace with his death if it means his family has a world to live in.]]

* KilledOffForReal: The end of Season 7 has the Monitor appear to inform Oliver that he needs to die in the Crisis. Oliver himself is (for the most part) resigned to it throughout this season, despite urges from Diggle and Thea to ScrewDestiny. Future Zoe also bites it in the third episode, but Present Rene resolves to never let this happen after he learns about it the episode after.

* LateArrivalSpoiler: Oliver's death in the Crisis on Infinite Earths for anyone who [[Recap/ArrowS7E22YouHaveSavedThisCity didn't know yet]].
* LaterInstallmentWeirdness: This season only has 10 episodes, less than half of any season prior. If you discount the Crisis on Infinite Earths crossover and the Birds of Prey backdoor pilot, there's only 8. Not counting the two, every episode has been shown before the Christmas break, leaving only the GrandFinale.

* LockedOutOfTheLoop: The Monitor refuses to tell Oliver anything about his plans in the early episodes, frustrating Oliver and leading him to get some concrete answers of his own about the Monitor via the League of Assassins. [[spoiler:It's later revealed that this was part of his plan all along, however.]] Oliver also doesn't learn about the Anti-Monitor until after the Crisis begins.
* MessianicArchetype: Oliver, knowing full well that it will result in his death, helps the Monitor with the ultimate objective to defeat the Anti-Monitor in Crisis on Infinite Earths at the end of the season and is referred to as one of the paragons of humanity by the Monitor.

** Oliver starts off the season well aware that he dies at the end of it. [[spoiler:Oliver does indeed die in [[Recap/Supergirl2015S5E9CrisisOnInfiniteEarthsHourOne the first hour of the Crisis]], but is resurrected in [[Batwoman2019S1E9CrisisOnInfiniteEarthsHourTwo the second]], albeit without his soul.]]

* TheParagon: Oliver is heavily implied to be one of the Paragons of heroes, though he ends up dying before the seven Paragons assemble to face the Anti-Monitor in Crisis. Regardless, he's still looked up to by the likes of Barry, Kara and Sara, who are Paragons.

* PoorCommunicationKills: The Monitor refuses to share any information with Oliver in the first two episodes, which leads to him going rogue to get some answers of his own in the third episode, which could've been avoided if the Monitor simply clued Oliver into his plans a bit more. [[spoiler:At the end of "Reset", however, it's revealed that this was deliberately engineered by the Monitor so Oliver would create an antimatter weapon as part of Novu's grand plan.]]
* PoorlyDisguisedPilot: "Green Arrow and the Canaries" is the backdoor pilot for a potential Birds of Prey spin-off.

* SecretTestOfCharacter: It turns out that the whole pre-Crisis season was [[spoiler: planned by the Monitor to ensure that Oliver is ready for Crisis.]]
* SeriesFauxnale: Crisis on Infinite Earths is meant to be this for the Arrowverse, but the final season of Arrow fills the role just as well, being the end of Oliver's story after an eight-year journey to save his city and now the multiverse. A Birds of Prey spinoff starring Laurel, Dinah and Mia has also been confirmed, meaning that the Green Arrow saga continues - just not with Oliver in the chair.

* SomethingCompletelyDifferent: Overlaps with GenreShift. Arrow has always been the most grounded of the Arrowverse shows, and hasn't really delved into the ScienceFantasy natures of the multiverse and time travel like The Flash or Legends outside of the annual crossovers and Earth-2 Laurel's presence from Season 5 onwards. However, this season revolves around Oliver's plot to assist the Monitor in preventing the Crisis on Infinite Earths from wiping out all of existence, and Oliver has to travel to alternate universes to do so, starting with Earth-2 in the premiere episode. He sticks around long enough to see Earth-2 get wiped from existence, which also establishes that the stakes are much higher than something like the Undertaking or Ricardo Diaz taking control of the criminal underworld of Star City - this time, all of existence is at stake.
* SpottingTheThread: In the premiere, Dark Archer Tommy notes that Oliver couldn't have been the one in the Hood in Starling City during his supposed twelve years on Lian Yu, because Oliver would never have allowed Thea to die if he was in the city at the time. He also deduces that Oliver was the one in the Hood (or one of them, at least) when Oliver catches a high-velocity cork behind his head during his coming-back-to-life party.

* TonightSomeoneDies: Oliver has been told by the Monitor that he will die in the Crisis, so it's not a surprise that he will die come the end of this season.
* TookALevelInBadass: As a testament to how far he's come over the last seven years, Oliver more or less wipes the floor with the Earth-2 Dark Archer. Overlaps with VillainForgotToLevelGrind, since Oliver is effectively fighting the Season 1 BigBad again after seven years and several levels in badass taken throughout the show.

* YouCantFightFate: Oliver is completely resigned to his fate this season, knowing that his death is the only chance to save his family. Others try to convince him otherwise throughout the season, with limited success.

** Lyla is working for him, and he has her bring him the aforementioned scientist after Oliver neglects to do so. It's later revealed that [[spoiler:during Lyla's time in military service, the Monitor spared her from dying with the rest of her unit because she had a part to play in the Crisis, and she is working with him

* DrivingQuestion: The exact circumstances of Oliver's death in the Crisis can be seen as this. [[spoiler:He eventually performs a HeroicSacrifice in the first hour of Crisis, though notably it isn't actually the way that he was supposed to die in Crisis, according to the Monitor.

** [[Arrow/SeasonTwo Season 2]] - The Deathstroke gang, led by JJ Diggle, acts as the main antagonist for the future arc and then, after William, Mia and Connor are time-displaced to 2019, the newly forming Deathstrokes led by Grant Wilson play the antagonists for the fourth episode.
** [[Arrow/SeasonThree Season 3]] - ""[[Recap/ArrowS8E2WelcomeToHongKong Welcome to Hong Kong]]" references the flashbacks for this season, with the setting being Hong Kong ([[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin duh]]), the Alpha-Omega virus having been recreated by a doctor Oliver was instructed to bring to the Monitor, Tatsu helping Oliver out as a GuestStarPartyMember, and China White playing the antagonist for the episode (even referencing [[Recap/ArrowS3E9TheClimb her last dual with Tatsu]]). ""[[Recap/ArrowS8E3LeapOfFaith Leap of Faith]]" alludes to the present-day storyline, with heavy involvement from the Thanatos Guild, Oliver climbing the same mountain on which he dueled Ra's in [[Recap/ArrowS3E9TheClimb The Climb]], and Thea and Talia playing major roles in the episode.

** [[Arrow/SeasonSix Season 6]] - When Anatoly meets William, he references his time on the wrong side of history the last time that the two met, obviously talking about his time working with Cayden James and Ricardo Diaz. The promo for "Reset" also features a very much alive Quentin in an alternate reality, and references to him being [[Recap/ArrowS6E23LifeSentence shot by Diaz]] are made a few times (though in this reality, he survived his surgery).

* TheChessmaster: The Monitor, to unknown ends (aside from his proclaimed intention to save the multiverse) is pulling most of the strings this season. As of the end of the sixth episode:
** He sends Oliver on a FetchQuest to retrieve Earth-2 dwarfstar particles and a Chinese scientist in the first two episodes before Oliver goes rogue to find some answers about Mar Novu himself, and upon learning of an ancient League of Assassins prophecy, sets to work creating a weapon capable of killing the Monitor. [[spoiler:Lyla later informs Oliver that the antimatter weapon he's trying to create is a part of the Monitor's grand plan for the Crisis]].
** Lyla is working for him, and he has her bring him the aforementioned scientist after Oliver neglects to do so.
** An ancient League of Assassins tome depicts the Monitor being responsible for the creation of the League - this isn't confirmed to actually be Mar Novu's work, however, and there is likely more to the story than Oliver thinks, especially since the picture of the being depicted in the tome only resembles the Monitor (as in, it's not a perfect match).

* DrivingQuestion: The exact circumstances of Oliver's death in the Crisis can be seen as this.
* EvilAllAlong: In "Leap of Faith", Oliver uncovers a prophecy stating that the founder of the League of Assassins met an ancient cosmic entity who was prophecized to bring about the end of the world who resembles the Monitor, so Oliver assumes this of Mar Novu. Given the drawing bearing more resemblance to the already-released (though not yet shown in the show) character poster of the Anti-Monitor, there's probably more to the story than Oliver thinks.

** The flash-forwards to Star City 2040 logically already let us know that the Crisis on Infinite Earths will ''not'' ultimately result in a multiversal apocalypse that the Anti-Monitor presumably wishes to cause. As of "Present Tense", however, this is [[AmbiguousSituation ambiguous]] since the BadFuture has possibly been averted by the repercussions of Future Team Arrow simply being in the present, as well as informing Present Team Arrow the [[WretchedHive status of Star City 2040]], which leads to Team Arrow to try to change the future for the better as much as they can.

** Oliver is melancholic, resigned to his fate in the upcoming crisis if it means protecting his family. Diggle plays the eclectic to Oliver here, insisting that he and Oliver are brothers and the two are in this together, despite Oliver's insistence that Diggle distance himself from him in order to have a better shot at surviving the Crisis. However, he has no interactions with anyone else in the Queen-Merlyn family, so he only plays this role directly to Oliver.

* HeroicSacrifice: The whole season revolves around Oliver's impending death in Crisis on Infinite Earths, which, even if Oliver's death isn't exactly this, Oliver's choice to progress with the course of events that ''will'' lead to his death one way or another makes it this.

* KillEmAll: The Anti-Monitor annihilates Earth-2 at the end of the season premiere. Laurel is one of a handful of Earth-2 denizens who manage to escape its fate.

* LockedOutOfTheLoop: The Monitor refuses to tell Oliver anything about his plans in the early episodes, frustrating Oliver and leading him to get some concrete answers of his own about the Monitor via the League of Assassins. [[spoiler:It's later revealed that this was part of his plan all along, however.]]

** The formerly fixed BadFuture from the flashforwards introduced [[Arrow/SeasonSeven last season]] has been averted by Mia, William and Connor being sent to 2019 in "Leap of Faith" and their subsequent explanation in "Present Tense" of the key factors that made Star City 2040 a less-than-ideal place to live.

* TheParagon: Oliver is one of the seven paragons of heroes, by the Monitor's account.

* YouCantFightFate: Oliver is completely resigned to his fate this season, knowing that his death is the only chance to save his family. Diggle tries to convince him otherwise, but it doesn't really look like things will pan out the way he's hoping.

* BackForTheFinale: Tommy, Adrian, Malcolm, Moira, Thea, Talia, Athena, Roy, Anatoly, Quentin, Ragman, and Yao Fei all make appearances this season. [[spoiler:Felicity]], absent for most of the season, is set to return in the GrandFinale.