Arrow Season 7: Mia Smoak’s Journey to Becoming a Hero Has Just Begun

The best twist of Arrow Season 7 was that newcomer Katherine McNamara wasn’t just a badass cage-fighter with mysterious ties to Felicity Smoak (Emily Bett Rickards), but that she was, in fact, Oliver (Stephen Amell) and Felicity’s daughter they’d raised in secret.

While her journey this season has had quite a few bumps, Mia Smoak swiftly captured the hearts of Arrow fans, and there’s no doubt she’ll continue to do so in the Season 7 finale and beyond. The upcoming eighth and final season will continue to flash-forward to Mia and William’s (Ben Lewis) adulthood in 2049, with plenty more adventures on the way, but it’s safe to say we’ve only really seen the beginning of Mia’s journey to become a hero.

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“She’s been conflicted because she grew up understanding one narrative and then her life kind of blew up when she found out her mother was secretly still being a vigilante,” showrunner Beth Schwartz told TV Guide. “Then seeing the old team and sort of connecting with Connor and Zoey and William and sort of establishing this new kind of team — she’s the daughter of Oliver and Felicity so there’s a hero naturally inside of her, so that’s what’s starting to come out.”

Katherine McNamara, ArrowPhoto: Dean Buscher, Dean Buscher/The CW

We’re 100 percent on board to watch the next generation of heroes take up the Team Arrow mantle. In particular, there’s a ton of story left to explore between William and Mia, who have just recently discovered their familial ties and haven’t had too much time to deal with it. The development of their sibling relationship is something Schwartz says she’s excited to explore, especially given how prominent the theme of family has always been in Arrow.

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“Part of the show that was always my favorite was the Oliver/Thea (Willa Holland) relationship and the brother and sister dynamic,” Schwartz said. “I always love the family dynamics. It was fun getting [Mia and William] together because their personalities are so different. Just having them be able to talk about what interesting parents they have and non-tradition childhoods — it’s nice that they get to sort of lean on each other because no one else can really understand that.”

We’ve already speculated that both Felicity and Oliver might wind up dead before Arrow wraps its series finale episode, so Mia and William may need to lean pretty heavily on one another from now on.

Arrow airs Mondays at 9/8c on The CW.

(Disclosure: TV Guide is owned by CBS Interactive, a division of CBS Corporation.)

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Stephen Amell and Emily Bett Rickards, ArrowPhoto: Jack Rowand, Jack Rowand/The CW