Starling City

For the eponymous Earth-2 city, see Starling City.

For various uses of Starling City, see Starling City (disambiguation).

"Starling City"
Information
Season 8 » Episode 1
Episode number	161 of 170
Original airdate	October 15, 2019
Written by	Beth Schwartz
Directed by	James Bamford
Guest stars
Katie Cassidy as Laurel Lance/Black Canary (special appearance by) Susanna Thompson as Moira Queen (special guest star) John Barrowman as Malcolm Merlyn (special guest star) Josh Segarra as Adrian Chase/The Hood (special guest star) Andrea Sixtos as older Zoe Ramirez Charlie Barnett as older John Diggle, Jr./Deathstroke Colin Donnell as Tommy Merlyn/Dark Archer (special guest star)
Chronology
Preceded by	"You Have Saved This City"
Followed by	"Welcome to Hong Kong"

"Starling City" is the first episode of the eighth season of Arrow, and the one-hundred-sixty-first episode overall. It aired on October 15, 2019.

Synopsis

While trying to decipher The Monitor’s mission, Oliver returns to Starling City where he encounters familiar faces. Meanwhile, Mia and William's team clash with a new foe.

Trivia

• This is the first episode of the series not to feature Emily Bett Rickards (Felicity Smoak) after being promoted to a series regular due to Emily Bett Rickards leaving the show.
• This episode feature many references to past episodes of the show, mainly from Season 1:
  • Throughout the episode, Oliver experiences events in extremely similar ways he experienced the same events on Earth-1 or in "Pilot", but with a few changes, notably Malcolm Merlyn taking Walter's role as well as Tommy Merlyn taking Thea's role.
  • Malcolm mentions a fight between the Hood and the Dark Archer to Dinah in a similar way Oliver told Quentin about the Hood saving him in "Pilot".
  • Oliver tries to escape Diggle's car but Diggle beats him to the chase, revealing he is the Earth-1 version. He also tells Oliver that he fooled him once which also refers to "Pilot".
  • After Oliver leaves a party at Verdant, Diggle points out he's going the wrong way. The same thing happened in "Pilot". Also, Oliver ends up stopping Diggle the same way he stopped him in that episode, even pointing out that he always falls for that move.
  • Oliver and Tommy mentions that Thea used to say "The dead don't want anything. It's one of the benefits of being dead." Earth-1 Thea said the same thing in "Honor Thy Father", and Oliver referenced that quote to her in "Legacy".
  • Oliver meeting a tech expert for Queen-Merlyn Enterprises echoes when he met Felicity during "Lone Gunmen".
  • Moira mentioned that Thea died from a Vertigo overdose on her 18th birthday. This is a reference to "Trust but Verify", where Thea drove after taking Vertigo on her 18th birthday which resulted in her going to court.
  • The fight between Oliver (as the Green Arrow) and Tommy (as the Dark Archer) is similar to the fight between Oliver and Malcolm in "Darkness on the Edge of Town". When Oliver finds out Tommy is the Dark Archer, he reacts the same way Malcolm did in that episode when he found out Oliver is the Hood.
  • Oliver gets trapped by Tommy the same way he got trapped by Malcolm in "Sacrifice". He later get out of the situation the same way he did in that episode, while Diggle saves him and jokes that he found him from a tracker in his shoe (which also happened in that episode).
  • The final fight between Oliver and Tommy on a roof is exteremly similar to the final fight between Oliver and Malcolm in "Sacrifice".
  • Oliver says to Adrian that he's 10 steps ahead of him, the same thing Earth-1 Adrian used to tell Oliver in Season 5.
• The city where Oliver and company reside has not been called Starling City since the fourth season premiere "Green Arrow", when it was renamed Star City as a method of rebranding after the repeated tragedies and in honor of Ray Palmer who was believed dead. However, its Earth-2 counterpart never underwent the change, albeit the timeline being pushed backwards to which the present-day events mirror that of season 1, when it was in fact called "Starling City".
• This episode is an homage to the first season of Arrow.
• Bruce Wayne's quote shared by Adrian Chase, "once you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be the truth", is taken from Sherlock Holmes.

Goofs

• In The Flash episode "Enter Zoom", it was mentioned that on Earth-2, Robert Queen became a vigilante in Starling City known as The Hood, while his son Oliver Queen died at sea. However in this episode, Ardian Chase is shown as The Hood and a vigilante in Starling City, and even though the Queen Mansion is shown, there is no mention of Robert at any point in the episode.
  • However, given that Robert’s identity was exposed in 2015, he could have been imprisoned much like Roy at the end of Season 3 and Oliver at the end of Season 6, which eventually led to Adrian Chase taking the mantle, though it’s unknown if Adrian and Robert ever met on this Earth.