Arrow's Season 7 premiere may have seemed like a huge status quo shift for the series, but it's got nothing on "Starling City." This episode shakes up Oliver Queen's life and mission in a profound way, transforming him from humble vigilante to a man who holds the fate of all existence in his brawny hands. Arrow is both a very different and a much-improved show as Season 8 gets underway. It's kind of a shame the end is so close.

Arrow: "Starling City" Photos 9 IMAGES

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Every Character in the Arrowverse's Crisis on Infinite Earths Crossover 23 IMAGES

A number of pieces click into place after watching this episode. "Starling City" offers a much clearer sense of how exactly the final season sets the stage for Crisis and what role Ollie has to play in that conflict. This episode also shows what exactly the cast and crew meant when they said each Season 8 episode serves as a tribute to a previous season. This episode banks heavily on nostalgia for that bygone, simpler era of the series, when Ollie was recently returned from the island and working to unravel Malcolm Merlyn's sinister plot. And it uses that nostalgia to terrific effect, thanks in no small part to the return of key actors like Susanna Thompson, John Barrowman, and Josh Segarra. And let's not forget Colin Donnell, who finally gets the chance to play a more traditional Tommy Merlyn again and not a doppelganger or figment of Ollie's imagination."Starling City" manages to cleverly introduce a fairly complicated premise. Initially, it isn't clear whether we're witnessing a flashback to the series premiere. And even with clues like a Batman mask replacing the iconic Deathstroke mask on the shore (what I wouldn't give to learn the back-story to that artifact), it takes some time before the true nature of this world and its connection to the Arrowverse is made clear. Stephen Amell deserves a lot of credit for for helping convey that information. It quickly becomes apparent through watching those early scenes that we aren't seeing a Season 1-era Ollie returning home for the first time, but a present-day Ollie putting on an act and confronting a world strangely, tragically different from his own.Amell impresses throughout the episode, and he's given plenty of strong material to work with this week. Being faced with long-dead enemies like Malcolm and Adrian Chase and even his dear, departed mother is going to take a heavy toll on a hero. The scenes between Amell and Thompson especially stand out in that regard. The actors themselves are grappling with the impending end of a project that's been a huge part of their lives, and that seems to add a much-needed layer of authenticity to these tearful reunions and farewells and death scenes. All of this bodes well for what promises to be an emotionally charged couple of months.The alternate universe setting is enjoyable in its own right, full of intriguing new wrinkles like the aforementioned Batman mask, Tommy being driven to become the Dark Archer in place of Merlyn, and Chase filling the void left by this universe's Ollie. These changes work because they all extend from the same catalyst. This is what Star City would look like if Ollie had never returned home and never made such a profound impact on these characters' lives. It's not as cut and dry as the city being worse off without him. In some ways, life is worse, with Thea being dead and Tommy falling into darkness. But conversely, we see what a different man Chase would have become were he not consumed by vengeance. This setting helps to highlight the legacy of Oliver Queen, warts and all.I'd be perfectly content if the final season continued this premise, with Ollie visiting a new world every week that in some way reflects on a past season. According to Amell, though, most of this season will indeed take place on Earth-1, if not necessarily in Star City. Still, "Starling City" does set a strong example and clarify exactly what the dynamic between Ollie and the Monitor is meant to be. We also get a taste of how exactly the rest of the Team Arrow crew will factor into the plot, thanks to some very entertaining yet foreboding scenes between Ollie and Diggle.That isn't to say that Season 8 is off to a flawless start. The action scenes suffer quite a bit in this episode, falling victim to that all-too-familiar problem that comes from having two near-identical archer characters fighting in dimly lit environments. Too often the flow of battle becomes entirely lost because it's impossible to tell which character is which. It should also be said that the flash-forward storyline feels even more like an unnecessary, tacked-on component than it did in Season 7. The hope is that the new Deathstroke Gang storyline will gain momentum (especially if Manu Bennett's Slade Wilson does wind up returning in the present), but right now those scenes serve only to get in the way of a far more compelling hero's journey.Also bizarre is the realization (which didn't click while I was watching) that this alternate universe is apparently meant to be the same Earth-2 so often featured in The Flash. Executive producer Beth Schwartz confirmed as much during a recent press screening. That reveal is conflicting, to say the least. On one hand, it highlights the scope and consequences of the Crisis in a real, tangible way. The thought that established characters like Harry Wells have been wiped out alongside these familiar yet unfamiliar Arrow favorites adds that much more weight to Ollie's quest.On the other, it's difficult to reconcile this Earth-2 with the one we've seen on The Flash. That world differs in far more ways than just the absence of Oliver Queen. Where's the Art Deco aesthetic? What about the fact that The Flash previously established that Robert Queen returned to Starling City and took up the Green Arrow mantle? The continuity makes no sense, to the point where I'd just as soon treat The Flash's Earth-2 and Arrow's Earth-2 as different universes. Not that it makes much difference with the way things are heading for the multiverse.Still, it's hard to dwell overlong on those flaws when the general direction of the series is so fresh and exciting. The end is fast approaching for Arrow, and the cast and crew seem intent on taking full advantage of the limited time remaining.