Present Tense

"Someone told me the only way to change the future is to start doing things differently now."

—Rene Ramirez on changing the future.

"Present Tense" is the fourth episode of the eighth season of Arrow, and the one-hundred-sixty-fourth episode overall. It aired on November 5, 2019.

Synopsis

When a mysterious new Deathstroke appears in Star City, Oliver and Team Arrow insist on taking down this villain themselves. Meanwhile, reeling from the loss of one of their own, the future Team Arrow figures out a new way to try and stop JJ.[src]

Cast

Main cast

• Stephen Amell as Oliver Queen/Green Arrow
• David Ramsey as John Diggle/Spartan
• Rick Gonzalez as Rene Ramriez/Wild Dog
• Juliana Harkavy as Dinah Drake/Black Canary
• Katherine McNamara as Mia Smoak/Blackstar
• Ben Lewis as Older William Clayton
• Joseph David-Jones as Connor Hawke
• LaMonica Garrett as Mar Novu/Monitor

Special appearance by

• Katie Cassidy as Laurel Lance/Black Canary

Special guest star

• Echo Kellum as Curtis Holt

Guest starring

• Jamie Andrew Cutler as Grant Wilson/Deathstroke
• Venus Terzo as Dr. Elisa Schwartz

Co-starring

• Keri Adams as Bethany Snow
• Andrew Chin as Perp
• Jason Day as Cop
• Eliza Faria as Young Zoe
• Susan Hanson as Evelyn Fairfield
• Bill Morris as Macmillan Fairfield
• Kyle Mosonyi as Uniform

Trivia

• While not having as many as the previous episodes, this episode has some callbacks and references to previous seasons.
  • Slade's attack on Star City and the events from episode "City of Blood" to "Unthinkable" is referenced multiple times during this episode.
    • Curtis jokingly names Grant's attack "Siege 2.0", but instead of Mirakuru soldiers, it's bombs.
    • Grant mentions how his father attacked Star City 6 years ago and how he is planning to do the same.
    • When the criminal in SCPD takes a seat, he asks an officer what the time is, then puts a bomb under the seat, puts on a Deathstroke mask, and begins taking out cops. A very similar thing happens during "City of Blood", where it is similarly the start of a siege.
    • Diggle mentions that they need a new strategy, instead of going to the tunnels to fight Deathstroke's army, as they did in "Unthinkable".
    • After Mia defeated Deathstroke, Oliver uses a rope arrow to tie him to a wall, similar to what he did in "Unthinkable".
  • During Rene's speech, Laurel prompts Dinah to try dipping fries into her Big Belly Burger milkshake, which Laurel (Earth-1) also told Nyssa to do in "Al Sah-him".
  • Diggle talks about his failure on Andy as he was killed by John in "Genesis".
  • Rene says to Diggle that at least he didn't throw up like he usually does. this refers to Diggle vomiting in "Legends of Today", "Invasion", "Crisis on Earth-X, Part 4" and "Think Fast".
  • Laurel mentions to Mia how she used to be a bad guy, referencing to how she worked for Zoom in Season 2 of The Flash, Adrian Chase in Season 5 of Arrow, and Cayden James and Ricardo Diaz in Season 6 of Arrow.
  • Curtis' return in this episode is a throwback to when he first appeared in the Season 4 episode The Candidate.
  • Mia and Oliver's conversation at Robert Queen and Emiko Adachi's grave is a bit similar to when Oliver's conversation with Barry Allen took place at Laurel Lance's grave in the Season 4 episode "Canary Cry".
• Though there are numerous meanings to "present tense", the inspiration behind the episode's title actually came from the Pearl Jam song of the same name according to co-writer Oscar Balderrama.^[1]
• This is the final episode of the season, and the show to feature every main cast member of the season.

Production

Preparation ran from August 6 until August 14, 2019. Shooting ran from August 15 until August 27, 2019.^[2]

Gallery

Videos

References

Arrow season 8
"Starling City" • "Welcome to Hong Kong" • "Leap of Faith" • "Present Tense" • "Prochnost" • "Reset" • "Purgatory" • "Crisis on Infinite Earths: Part Four" • "Green Arrow & The Canaries" • "Fadeout"