At Arrow‘s very first TCA press tour appearance in summer 2012, it was said that the CW superhero series would end exactly as it began, with the image of Oliver spying the fishing boat that would rescue him from Lian Yu, at the close of his torturous five-year odyssey away from Starling City.

Back then, explaining the superhero series’ flashback structure for the first time, producer Andrew Kreisberg said, “Ideally by the last episode of the series, the very last flashback will be Oliver seeing the boat that rescued him in the pilot.”

That, however, will not be the case.

“Spoiler alert. That’s going to end up being the Season 5 finale,” Arrow showrunner Marc Guggenheim tells TVLine, turning one of our predictions for this TV season into a reality.

“It was really just a hope at that point [in 2012] that the show would run five years,” Guggenheim says of the aforementioned original plan, “and we always thought that we would intercut the final moment of the series with the first moment of the series, that it would form one big Moebius strip.

“There’s still a part of me that wishes we could do that,” the showrunner continues. “But I wouldn’t want to artificially extend the flashbacks [beyond five seasons], and I also wouldn’t want to artificially cut the show short. It would’ve been a beautifully elegant thing, and Five Years Ago Me would’ve loved it. But things change, and I do think it’ll make the Season 5 finale pretty awesome.”

Which is not to say that, come May, the season will end quietly and poetically with bedraggled Oliver peering over that craggy ridge, setting eyes on salvation.

“Look, we have some incredibly clear plans for what we want to do in the Season 5 finale,” Guggenheim shares. “At the same time, we always leave ourselves room to be like, ‘…and throw this cliffhanger in, throw that twist in.’ Usually the craziest ideas on this show tend to be the ones that the ideas sort of linger, and we never really quite set on them. Like, ‘Oh, maybe we’ll kill off Tommy?’ We don’t fully commit until we’re pretty much breaking the episode.”

Vote now for Ship of the Year by liking and reblogging your OTP here on Tumblr! Remember, notes = votes, so  be sure to show your favorite ship some love and tune into the 2016 @mtvfandom​ Awards on July 24th at 8/7c to see who wins!

Art by @pintosketches

joverwatch said:I love the idea of you replying into a SOTY post. It's genius! Let's do this! Not a question, but inspiration for a Bratva storyline during S5. What would you like/think will happen?

Thanks my friend! I thought it was a fun way to reblog SOTY. I am seriously lacking in talent compared to all the wonderful artists, fic writers and gif makers. But I’m good at babbling. lol

Oh my god. I love you so much for this question. BRATVA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! When you say Bratva in your head does it sound like Tevye’s “TRADITION!” from Fiddler on the Roof? Cause it does for me. 

I AM SO PUMPED FOR RUSSIA Y’ALL. If you read my reviews this year you know I was driven to MAD BOREDOM with the S4 flashbacks. They were just awful. Start to finish. BAD. One of my primary complaints is that it really didn’t move Oliver down the field in terms of flashback progression. His relationship with Whatshername wasn’t significant enough to really warrant Oliver shutting down his emotions (as I’ll believe we’ll see in Season 5). Furthermore, Oliver just wasn’t dark enough. He wasn’t MEAN enough. He was still pretty warm and fuzzy. Remember, we’re moving towards a man who loves deeply, but who cut that side of him off. That’s who Oliver was in the pilot. Stephen often says Oliver was a machine in the pilot and that’s certainly true. However, he wasn’t a machine because he doesn’t FEEL. He became a machine because he felt too much. So Season 4 really didn’t do enough to push Oliver to that edge of emotional heartbreak for me. Mostly because Stephen had zip chemistry with Whatshername and I was more fascinated with watching paint dry than I was with her character.

Too bitter? Sorry. Give me another month. Nope. I’ll still be bitter.

So, what I am looking forward to is the writers finally pulling the trigger on The Machine. This is it. It’s Season 5 - the end of the flashbacks. It’s go time. I want to see how the Bratva strips Oliver of his remaining warm and fuzzy and turns him into a truly lethal killer. I want to see shirtless training. Not just for the gratuity, although that’s certainly important, but for the progression in Oliver’s skill sets. Oliver is a survivalist and his fighting evolved with every teacher - Yao Fei, Shado, Slade and Maseo. Every teacher offers another layer. I think the Bratva will give Oliver the cold precision he’s been lacking in the flashbacks. Basically, I want to see how we get to THIS:

Marc knows. He always knows. I agree with Laura though the problem isn’t that Oliver is becoming too close to the man we met in the premiere. The problem is that he isn’t CLOSE ENOUGH this season. Let’s crank up the steel, ruthless killer aspect. NOW.

And they need to kill Whatshername. It’s time. It’s way past time. Deep six her and let’s get Oliver shutting off those emotions.

Also @laurawritesabout is my spirit animal. She thinks my thoughts. Has to be said occassionally.