‘Arrow’ Canceled After Season 5? Stephen Amell Admits This Season Could Be The Last

Season 4 of Arrow seemed promising at the start. Oliver Queen (Stephen Amell) was finally coming into his own as the Green Arrow and his relationship with Felicity (Emily Bett Rickards) was headed towards something more permanent. Yet, the series struggled to gain viewers and decided to return to its roots in Season 5.

While it doesn’t seem likely that The CW will pull the plug on the series anytime soon, Amell recently hinted that Season 5 might be Arrow’s last. Will Green Arrow hang up his quiver at the end of this season?

According to Screen Crush, Amell and executive producer Marc Guggenheim recently opened up about Arrow’s future. As the show crosses the 100th episode mark, Amell admitted that a lot is hinging on the success of Season 5.

“I do really believe that this season is sort of a throw-down-the-gauntlet year for us, where we’re either going to do what we do and do it well or it’s the last year. If we find that magic formula — which is not magic, it’s just hard work and playing to your strengths — then the show could go on for a really long time,” the actor shared.

There’s no telling if Season 5 will propel the series on or mark its end. If The CW’s other shows are of any indication – like Supernatural, which is currently in its 12th season – then Arrow has a bright future ahead.

For Guggenheim, he views Season 5 as more of an end to a chapter than anything else. Indeed, the new season will conclude the final dose of Oliver’s flashbacks as fans finally learn the rest of what happened to Oliver when he went missing.

In his interview with Entertainment Weekly, Guggenheim admitted that part of the story was over, but denied that Arrow will conclude after five years. Instead, Guggenheim believes this season will be a jumping off point for whatever comes next.

“I think we tend to look at Season 5 as the end of a particular chapter,” he stated, adding that the flashbacks were always “a five-year deal.”

“The show just turned out to be more successful than we anticipated,” he concluded. “We’re looking backward to move forwards.”

This season will introduce a new big bad for Oliver and Team Arrow in Prometheus. The villain is another dark version of Arrow and was created by Oliver at some point in his past.

“We brought in a villain this year that we’re going to learn is a villain of Oliver’s making,” Amell explained. “He’s someone that exists because of the things that Oliver has done. It allows us to go back and revisit some stories that we haven’t seen on Arrow in quite a while.”

Although Season 5 seems like a promising start, Comic Book Movie is reporting that Amell wasn’t happy with how things played out last year. In particular, the actor was disappointed in the show’s focus on romances over its action sequences.

“There’s a lull in any relationship, where you have a come-to-Jesus moment, and that happened to me in Season 4,” he stated. “We are a street-level crime-fighting show. We’re at our best when we’re focused on those things.”

That being said, Arrow’s ratings over the past few seasons have been great and it’s not likely that The CW is going to cancel it. Season 4 may have seen a dip in ratings, but it was nothing too drastic.

If Season 5’s return to the show’s crime-fighting roots is successful, then fans can expect many more years ahead. In the meantime, TV Line is reporting that Arrow’s 100th episode is going to feature an epic crossover between The Flash, Legends of Tomorrow, and Supergirl.

“It is such a radical departure from anything that we have ever done on the show,” Amell revealed about the coming episode. “We utilize the fantastical elements that we bring in on The Flash and carry through to Legends of Tomorrow with the present-day storyline to create something… that is not a flashback [or] a flash-forward. It’s something else entirely.”

The synopsis for the episode reveals that Oliver will wake up in an alternate time, where he never got shipwrecked on The Queen’s Gambit. Instead, both of Oliver’s parents are alive and well and he’s getting married to Laurel (Katie Cassidy).

“[The story] basically gives us license to do whatever we want,” Amell shared, “and to show some things that we’ll never be able to show, to have some characters interact that will never be able to interact on the show again — probably.”

Guggenheim teased, “There’s one moment… that I think is probably Stephen’s finest performance to date. This one scene, that really has two moments within the one scene, will break your heart. It will take your heart, pull it out and stomp it on the floor. It’s very, very affecting. It’s all on Stephen’s back. It’s incredible.”

Fans can watch Arrow’s 100th episode on November 30 on The CW, check out a preview for the epic crossover event below.

[Featured Image by Alberto E. Rodriguez/Getty Images]