Arrow season 5 finale: Filming wraps for Stephen Amell

It’s the end of an era, or at least it is for Stephen Amell on Arrow. While we still have to wait until close to the end of May in order to see the season 5 finale play out, the actor confirmed on his Twitter early in the day (as in, midnight) that he officially done with filming. Also, Oliver Queen rides around on a boat.

The season 5 finale, based on early details that are out there, sounds logistically like one of the most challenging ones that the show has ever cultivated. For one, the title alone in “Lian Yu” suggests that there was a lot of location shooting and dealing with the conditions. For the first time, a finale for the show is being centrally filmed somewhere else that is not in Star City. Also, you’re going to see the end of the Oliver flashbacks, which have been a staple of the series almost from the very beginning.

As for what else you can expect to see over the course of the episode, one of the biggest things most likely is going to be guest stars aplenty! We know for certain that Katie Cassidy, Manu Bennett, and Katrina Law are going to be involved in the series’ endgame — the Slade Wilson reappearance is personally the one that we’re the most excited about, just because it’s the one thing that we didn’t expect to see at some point midway through the season. We also want to dream that this could mean more of him over the course of season 6, but there are no guarantees about that at the moment.

All we know is that Arrow is really awesome right now. We haven’t been more excited for a finale since Slade was last on the show in season 2, and that has to do with everything from the guest stars coming to what we’ve had a chance to see to date with Prometheus, Oliver, and many of the other main characters. We really feel like we’re coming full-circle on the series, and we have no idea where the show could decide to go from here. There’s even a case to be made for this being a fitting series finale in the event that the show wanted to go in that direction. (We’re glad personally that they’re not.)

If you missed it, we’ve got the recent Arrow midseason trailer and a whole lot of other great stuff online now over at the link here. Be sure to check it out! (Photo: The CW.)