The team find themselves in a ruined Star City in 2046 and face off against both a new Green Arrow and an elderly Oliver Queen to find out what happened.
Tropes:
- Achilles in His Tent: This era's Oliver Queen is Not Quite Dead, but instead secluded himself in the ruins of his old Bunker.
- All There in the Script: The credits reveal that Grant Wilson's soldiers are Mirakuru-powered.
- An Arm and a Leg: Oliver lost his left arm to Grant Wilson when he attempted to save Star City.
- Armor Is Useless: Averted, Connor takes a point blank shot but survives due to the high density kevlar in his suit.
- Artificial Limbs: Oliver has a detachable bionic arm. With it, he can still be a master archer.
- Badass Longcoat: Well it's a jacket, but the leader of the roaming gang wears a puffy fur coat of piecemeal pelts. Mick gets it when he takes over the gang.
- Bad Future: The episode takes place in Star City 30 years after the events of Arrow, and from the looks of things, Oliver failed to save his city. All of his teammates are dead except for Felicity, who left when it became clear Star City was beyond saving, criminal gangs rule the streets, and most buildings have been reduced to ruins.
- Bad Guy Bar: Mick makes himself at home by partying with his newfound gang as the new thug leader.
- Beard of Sorrow: Oliver is sporting a beard, but he's so broken (both literally and figuratively) after everything that has happened.
- Beauty Is Never Tarnished: Averted, the cuts and bruises Ray picked up in the previous episode still linger.
- Break Out the Museum Piece: Sara brings Oliver his old battle gear (a composite of his original and Green Arrow costumes) to persuade him back to action.
- Brains and Brawn: Snart and Mick's discusses their respective roles in their partnership.
- Call-Back: Several to Arrow.
- Oliver mentions Slade Wilson's plan to destroy his life, which was the focus of Season 2.
- Star City in 2046 resembles what Starling City looked like during the 'Siege' - and once again, its an army raised by a Deathstroke that's responsible.
- Grant Wilson is defeated the same way his father was over thirty years ago — bound by a bola arrow.
- Celebrity Paradox: Mick makes a Happy Days Shout-Out. The show famously has Ron Howard, who is the Real Life father-in-law of Seth Gabel a.k.a. the first Count Vertigo.
- Character Development: In his dialogue with Ray at the end, Mick seems to realize that he really does care about the rest of the team.
- Chekhov's Gun: When Sara, Connor and Rip first dropped by the Arrow Bunker, Sara sees an prosthetic arm lying around in a corner. The now-handicapped Oliver will later use it after he regains his funk.
- Combat Pragmatist: As soon as Mick realizes the gang leader might be too much for him in a fist fight, he incinerates him with his gun.
- Continuity Nod:
- Oliver knows Kendra due to the events of "Legends of" two-parter.
- It is believed Barry does not appear due to his 2024 Crisis disappearance.
- A Day in the Limelight: Sara is the main focus of the episode.
- Despair Event Horizon: Ollie crossed it when Grant conquered the city and he lost all his friends and family.
- Doomed Hometown: Star City for Sara, Ray, Connor and Oliver.
- Dystopia: Star City does not look good in an alternate 2046.
- Empty Shell: Oliver is so broken after the deaths of his friends and his failure to save his hometown.Sara: They said you were dead!
Oliver: Well, they're not wrong. - Even Evil Has Standards: Snart is disgusted at the mindless chaos of Star City, both because that kind of thing doesn't interest him (there's no fun in stealing without a challenge) and because he's matured in ways Mick hasn't.
- Everybody's Dead, Dave: All of Sara's friends and family except Ollie are long gone. This is also what caused Ollie to cross the Despair Event Horizon, as he eventually found himself fighting, and losing, all alone.
- Evil Overlord: Grant Wilson rules the remnants of Star City and has unified the criminal element as his personal army.
- Expendable Alternate Universe: Rip argues that they should just leave this version of Star City behind, since it's just one possible future. The others are quick to refuse.
- Exty Years from Publication: The episode is set 30 years into the Arrowverse's current time.
- For Want Of A Nail: Oliver doesn't dwell on it, but things may have been different if Ray and Sara were there to fight by his side.
- Foreshadowing:
- Rip tells the team that "the events that they dread could very well come to be due to their actions to prevent them". Later on, Prof. Stein's attempts to dissuade Ray from taking a romantic interest in Kendra (to prevent Jax from having competition in a suitor) end up spawning such a romantic interest to begin with.
- In relation to the previous statement, the fact that he mentioned that this is a potential timeline. A few months later...
- Mick and Snart's falling out, and the reason for it.
- Generation Xerox:
- In the very first episodes of Arrow, Diggle becomes Oliver's very first ally when he was still starting out. Oliver then rebuilds his life and career by taking Diggle's son Connor as his protegee.
- Grant terrorizes Star City just like what his father did.
- Gone to the Future: In this particular future timeline, Sara and Ray never returned to 2016 and have been missing for thirty years.
- He's Back!: After some persuasion from Sara, Ollie dons his old costume and shows that old age and a missing arm didn't slowed him down in the least.Oliver: You wanna fight the Green Arrow? I'm right here.
- Hypocrite:
- Sara calls Rip out on his constant exposition of messing with the timeline despite the fact that that is exactly why he recruited them in the first place.
- Grant Wilson mocks Connor for being a Legacy Character, despite being one himself.
- When Mick claims that he doesn't care about the rest of the team, Leonard brings up him saving Ray in the last episode.
- I Choose to Stay:
- Played with. Sara decided to stay in 2046 against Rip's wishes to stop Grant Wilson and his pals, but Rip ultimately decided to have The Team help her.
- Also played with with regards to Mick. He makes it very clear to Snart that he wants to stay in 2046 but Snart forcibly prevents this by knocking Mick out and taking him back to the Waverider.
- Klingon Promotion: Mick becomes the head of a gang after torching the previous leader.
- Legacy Character: Both Connor Hawke and Grant Wilson are this to Oliver Queen and Slade Wilson, respectively. A Discussed Trope.Grant: You're not Green Arrow! You're just some punk in a Halloween costume!
Connor: Funny! I was gonna say the same thing about you! - Love Triangle: Both Jax and Ray start showing romantic interest in Kendra. She rebuffs the whole thing near the end of the episode, still affected by Carter's death.
- Morality Pet: Professor Stein reminds Rip that there's no point in stopping Vandal Savage if it means making immoral decisions such as abandoning your own team member.
- Mythology Gag:
- The new Green Arrow is John Diggle Jr. who goes by the name "Connor Hawke", who in the comics was Oliver's son.
- An aged Oliver boasts the goatee worn by his comic book counterpart, though he sports a full beard, not the forked Van Dyke of the comics.
- Oliver missing an arm is the same as what happens to him in Batman: The Dark Knight Returns.
- The trailers show the ruined Star City with the tagline: "You have failed this city."
- The new Deathstroke is Grant Wilson, Slade's son from the comics. This son had not been mentioned in the show yet, which had only mentioned Grant's younger brother Joe, a.k.a. Jericho.
- Mick just wants to see the world burn.
- Sara finally dons the White Canary's Badass Longcoat from the comics.
- The insult Grant Wilson throws at Connor for being "a punk in a costume" is reminiscent of the ones Terry McGinnis gets in Batman Beyond.
- Grant Wilson's Deathstroke costume uses blue and gray instead of Slade's gold and orange. In the comics, Grant's Deathstroke-patterned costume as Ravager was predominantly blue and gray.
- Oliver's prothetic arm is reminiscent of Roy's in the comics (though Oliver's doesn't function as an Arm Cannon).
- Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Stein's well-intentioned attempt to see if Ray was interested in Kendra in order to help Jax out resulted in Ray being interested in Kendra, to Jax's annoyance.
- Older Hero vs. Younger Villain: Oliver Queen vs. Grant Wilson.
- Passing the Torch: Oliver officially acknowledges Connor as his successor after defeating Grant.
- The Place: Referring to the city where Arrow takes place in.
- Series Continuity Error:
- Rip mentions in the Pilot Episode that the entire team has minimal effect to the timeline, yet Star City utterly descended to Dystopia with Oliver saying that Sara and Ray being there during the uprising could have been a game changer. Though Rip could have been talking about his era which is more than a hundred years into the future, making any damage from the Legends being gone long over and done with. It is also pointed out that Ray and Sarah probably wouldn't have been able to change the outcome of the uprising, but Sarah nonetheless feels they could have made a difference.
- Sara has no idea that Slade has a child, despite hearing that from Oliver in Lian Yu when he was calming Slade down (then again, he mentioned Joe not Grant).
- Snart mentions that, as bad as he is, he would never leave one of his teammates to die. This is in spite of the fact that in his premier episode Snart callously murdered one of his men for trying to back out of a job and then told two others that he would hunt them down when he found him. Then again this may just be the difference between True Companions and mooks.
- Ship Tease: Toyed with Ray, Jax and Kendra. Ship Sinking ensues pretty quickly, as Kendra makes it clear that she is not ready for something like this yet.
- Shout-Out:
- Mick dubs two of the gang members "Fonzie" and "Kenickie."
- When asked where they'll head to next, Rip says the question is "not where, but when". Apparently he's a Community fan.
- Spoiler Opening: Stephen Amell appears in the credit opening as a special guest star. This makes The Reveal that he's still alive less surprising.
- Take Up My Sword: Connor takes Oliver's suit and weapon during the latter's absence.
- That Man Is Dead: John Diggle Jr. changed his name to Connor Hawke when he failed to save his dad.
- Teeth-Clenched Teamwork: Snart and Mick find themselves on opposite sides - Mick is content to stay in the ruined Star City and lead an Army of Thieves and Whores while Snart is focused on saving Rip and Sara and stopping Savage.
- Timey-Wimey Ball: Rip insists that the team trying to fix things in this timeline may be what causes it to happen, despite that it's already happened. And changing the future is worse than changing the past, even though that's what this whole mission is about. And how do you define "the future" in this situation anyway? Especially since for Rip it's actually the past.
- Trailers Always Spoil:
- Oliver being alive was spoiled by the trailers, sneak-peeks, social media and the OBB of this very episode. To be fair, him surviving this long had previously been mentioned by Eobard Thawne.
- The new Deathstroke being Grant Wilson was spoiled by one of the sneak-peeks.
- What Happened to the Mouse?: For some reason no mention is made about Connor's sister, Sara. Similarly, Grant's brother, Joey, is also not mentioned. And while Slade is mentioned by name, his ultimate fate and what relevance that has to Grant's motives are never revealed.
