The Arrow season 4 mid-season finale ended with a shocker and a life-threatening injury. But this event doesn’t line up with the flash forward from the season premiere.
Warning: This story contains major spoilers from Arrow season 4, episode 9, “Dark Waters.” Do not read further if you haven’t watched the episode.
At the end of Arrow season 4, episode 9, “Dark Waters,” Oliver proposed to Felicity and she accepted. But, because this is Arrow, the happy couple was then set upon by gun-wielding Ghosts. While Oliver managed to flee from the gunfire, Felicity had been shot.
Now, the promotional material seems determined to convince us that Felicity is dead and in the grave we saw in the flash forward at the end of the Arrow season 4 premiere. Just watch the promo for the mid-season premiere:
However, from what we know so far, it simply doesn’t make sense for Felicity to be in the grave — at least from this shooting. Let’s look at why.
The time frame
The flash forward with Oliver and Barry at the grave takes place six months after the season premiere. Five months passed between Oliver and Felicity driving off at the end of season 3 and Thea and Laurel finding them in Ivy Town. This matches real world time, as the season 3 finale aired in May and season 4 premiered in October.
With that in mind, at Christmas it has only been two months since their return, meaning we have another four months to go before the grave scene occurs.
Barry’s presence
When we previously theorized about who might be in the grave, we noted that Felicity’s death would explain Barry’s presence at the funeral (or after funeral). On the other hand, we have to believe there is no chance Barry would miss Felicity’s funeral.
Barry and Felicity are incredibly close friends, and it seems hard to believe that even a super villain attacking would keep Barry from paying his respects.
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Barry’s demeanor
It’s also worth noting in the flash forward that Barry apologizes for missing the funeral and is visibly less upset than Oliver. It seems like he’s there in support of Oliver rather than being especially aggrieved himself. If it were Felicity who had died, Barry would be visibly grieving as well because of how close they are.
Oliver’s baby mama drama
In the two-part Arrow/Flash crossover, Oliver discovered that he has a son. However, the only way he can have a relationship with his son is if he keeps the entire thing a secret from everyone, including Felicity. When Barry travels back in time, he warns Oliver that not telling Felicity about a secret she found out about in the original timeline (the one where Vandal Savage killed everyone) will cause problems.
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After the crossover, Arrow EP Wendy Mericle said the fact that Oliver is hiding his son from Felicity will “come to a head in the middle of the season.” While she was mum on the circumstances, she teased, “[T]rue to what we’ve done on the show, if there’s a secret somewhere, it’s going to come out and it’s going to have some serious consequences.”
This plot will obviously involve Felicity and her relationship with Oliver, so she will need to be alive “in the middle of the season” for it to come to pass.
It’s too obvious
Finally, it simply seems too obvious for it to be Felicity in the grave. The Arrow writers like their plot twists, and Felicity’s “death” has simply been choreographed too blatantly.
In the season premiere, the flash forward transitioned out of a romantic scene between Oliver and Felicity. And now we have Felicity being shot and promos heavily featuring grave scene footage. We want to give the Arrow writers more credit than that.
Arrow returns with a new episode on Wednesday, January 20 at 8:00 p.m. ET on The CW.