Arrow Season 8 Premiere Review: 10 Ups & 3 Downs From 'Starling City'
Arrow's final season kicks off the Crisis in the show's best season premiere ever.
Contains spoilers from Arrow Season 8, Episode 1.
The end is nigh for Arrow.
A show that single-handedly resurrected the classic format of superhero television and, in the process, launched an entire shared universe full of heroes and villains, it has gifted us with some of the best and worst that the genre has to offer in its seven-year run, and now it gets to do it all one more time in its final 10-episode season.
But this won't just be any old season. No, this time, Oliver Queen will don a brand new green hood to traverse through the multiverse and help The Monitor prepare for the inevitable, for this season will act as a precursor - a lead-in, if you will - for the long-teased Crisis that will change the face of the Arrowverse forever.
In a way, that's exactly what the Season 8 premiere, 'Starling City', was all about, as it effectively introduced the new status quo while using it as a means of celebrating the past. The result? A nostalgic thrill-ride that paid tribute to the past while setting up the future. A thrill-ride that may just be Arrow's best season premiere ever.
First, the negatives...