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The Flash: How 'Armageddon' finale was also the next chapter of Arrow’s failed spinoff series
The world of Green Arrow and the Canaries lives on, just a little bit, on The Flash.
It’s been a while since we had a Green Arrow running around on The CW, but Oliver’s future daughter Mia Queen returned in this week’s episode of The Flash — and finally brought some answers about the long-dangling threads left over from the axed Arrow spinoff from that series’ final season.
The five-episode “Armageddon” event kicked off The Flash’s new season with a bang in recent weeks, bringing in a ton of guest stars from other shows and telling a classic Flash vs. Reverse-Flash story at its core. The event’s finale did not disappoint, with fan favorite Arrow alum Katherine McNamara (who plays Oliver and Felicity’s future adult daughter Mia) making a surprise return while bringing with her a storyline fans have been curious about ever since the Green Arrow & the Canaries backdoor pilot failed to score a series pick-up.
If you need a refresher: Green Arrow & the Canaries would’ve been a series set in the future of the Arrowverse following Mia’s next-gen version of the Green Arrow keeping the future safe. It was kicked off with a backdoor pilot during Arrow’s final season, and ended with a big cliffhanger that found Mia’s brother William (Ben Lewis) mysteriously kidnapped in the final moments, setting up a cliffhanger that was… never resolved when The CW decided not to move forward with the series.
That kidnapping has been a weird plot point with no answer for a while now, but Mia’s return finally brought a new chapter in that story. Turns out, two years later and Mia is still ripping around the world (and time stream) while searching for a still-missing William. The years we haven’t seen Mia seem to have hardened her a bit, and she feels very much like Oliver did in Season 1 of Arrow, with no qualms about killing if she deems it necessary.
The event ends with Mia still on the hunt, though the door is left firmly open for her to potentially return — and possibly even reconnect with her mother Felicity (Emily Bett Rickards) in 2021 down the line. Though there is no proper Arrow series on the dial anymore, there are still plenty of shows where Mia could fit in and pick up her story. She already has a connection on The Flash, and pretty much anyone can show up at anytime on Legends of Tomorrow.
“Mia has lost William and hasn’t necessarily lived up to the Green Arrow mantle in a way that she had hoped — and in a way that she would assume her mother would’ve wanted. It’s difficult for her to face that, knowing how much the [Green Arrow] legacy meant to both of her parents,” McNamara told TV Line. “I got a little bit of closure. I mean, look, there’s still a lot of Mia’s storyline that is yet to be resolved, and I’m very glad for that. I think that by the end of this episode, Mia feels very welcomed in this world, and I hope it’s not the last time we see her.”
So, there remain plenty of options to continue this story, and plenty of story left to tell. With the door being left open on William’s mysterious kidnapping, it seems likely this is not the last we’ve seen of Mia in the Arrowverse.
The Flash returns to The CW in 2022 with new episodes.
