Arrow: The Arrowverse loses major staple in shocking Season 8 twist

Arrow’s Season 8 premiere was a real treat, but no moment was more shocking than the ending, which ripped the Arrowverse of one of its longest-running staples.

Arrow made its long-awaited return to The CW last night with the premiere of its eighth and final season.

The episode, titled “Starling City”, saw Oliver Queen end up on Earth-2 after The Monitor sent him there to obtain a specific brand of Dwarfstar particle. While there, he ran into recent ally Laurel Lance – who had become her own earth’s Black Canary – and that earth’s version of Adrian Chase, who was in fact The Hood.

The trio were then joined by Oliver’s long-time friend, brother and confidante, John Diggle – who refused to let him go through this multiverse madness alone – as they teamed up to stop the Earth-2 version of Tommy Merlyn (who had become the Dark Archer due to Thea’s death) from committing his very own version of The Undertaking.

However, after successfully completing the mission, Oliver, Diggle and Laurel could only watch as Earth-2 was destroyed before their very eyes. Luckily for them, they were quickly able to utilize Cisco’s inter-dimensional extrapolator to take them back to Earth-1.

This, of course, left fans in complete and utter shock. But what does it all mean?

Earth-2 has been wiped out

As shocking as it sounds, it truly seems like we have seen the last of Earth-2. Walls, buildings and even its own people were literally dusted by a wave of anti-matter within seconds and, following the swift departure of Oliver, Laurel and Diggle, there wasn’t a single thing remaining. Yes, Earth-2 was no more.

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The alternate earth was the very first parallel dimension (other than Supergirl‘s Earth-38) that we ever encountered within the Arrowverse, as it debuted all the way back in Season 2 of The Flash when Zoom showed up through one of the 52 wormholes.

Soon afterwards, a number of Earth-2 characters popped up across both it and Arrow, leaving all of us excited as to how they would differ from their Earth-1 counterparts. And then, after much anticipation, we even got to take a trip to it, as the Scarlet Speedster and his team finally ventured there in “Welcome To Earth-2”.

Though the multiverse was the focus of Season 2, multiple earths would continue to play a role in the Arrowverse after that, with most of the shows referring to Earth-2 on a number of occasions because of the long-running characters that originated there.

It goes without saying that its destruction is game-changing.

What does Earth-2’s death mean?

Without stating the obvious, it means that Earth-2 is no more. Yep, the parallel dimension from which the likes of Black Siren and Harry and Jesse Wells originated from is no more. That raises an interesting point though, as we know the first of those three characters escaped death by joining Oliver and Diggle as they left through the breach, but what of the other two? Surely they wouldn’t have been killed off off-screen like that.

Whether they were or not, the fact of the matter is that Earth-2 was wiped out by a wave of anti-matter – anti-matter that was undoubtedly the doing to the Anti-Monitor. And as the show continues to build towards Crisis On Infinite Earths, we should expect to see more and more earths meet the same fate.

The question is: Will the likes of Jay Garrick, Sherloque Wells, ’90s Flash and Gypsy be as lucky as Laurel and escape their earths before destruction reigns down upon them? Let’s hope so!

Arrow returns to The CW next Tuesday, Oct. 22 at 9:00 p.m. ET. Do you think we’ve seen the last of Earth-2? Let us know in the comments below!