First Thoughts On 'Arrow' Season 4 (Episodes 10-20)

The first half of Arrow: season 4 was a bit of an average selection of episodes that seemed to be treading water until some actual interesting plot threads could start. The entire show seemed severely damaged by season 3, and the future didn't seem all that bright for Team Arrow. This second half of the season, however, has been much, much stronger overall, despite some notable flaws.
Felicity still takes up far too much focus on the show. Although I at first liked the idea of Damien Darhk permanently injuring her, the show then turned this pretty good twist around so that Curtis actually used nanobots to heal her...so what was the point in injuring her like that, giving her an arc of accepting this change and then undoing it all? Oh, and then of course she calls off the wedding with Oliver and then gets a whole episode focused around her and bee-lady from The Flash (an episode filled to brim with awful puns), and a whole episode focused around her and Oliver staging a fake wedding to get Cupid so that they could do big romantic speeches at one another! Where is the show going with Felicity now? Who knows. The writers clearly have no idea what they want to do with her and I think she should have been the one in the grave from the first episode. If you've done all you can with a character, why keep them in the show? It worked for Tommy, for Moira and for Sara, so why not do the same for Felicity?
But of course the big dramatic character death was Laurel. Laurel who's been pushed aside for Felicity focus the past two seasons with virtually nothing to do. Her actual death scene was very poorly handled, and the staging reminded me a lot of a scene from Star Wars: The Force Awakens. The actual impact of her death worked well, and her final scene kinda worked. The problem is that I took this death with a pinch of salt, knowing Arrow's recent history with character deaths. Maybe if she stays dead the show can get a bit more credibility back.
The flashbacks are still horribly underdeveloped, as if the writers either haven't worked out where they're going or possibly don't want to reveal anything too soon. Either way the flashbacks feel dull to watch, and are still far too brief to make any impact on the season or individual episodes.
There's been quite a lot of focus on Diggle and Andy in these episodes, and I can honestly say that these have been the strongest elements of the season so far. Having Dig kill Andy also gave the character the spark for some interesting future development.

Damien Darhk still doesn't quite work as the villain though. The show is either keeping too many of Damien's cards close to their chests for now or just haven't thought much about him being a three-dimensional character. In fact, Darhk is a little too self-aware at moments that does throw me a little. He's a formidable threat, but I don't know why. What's with all the secrecy? Why is his wife so sinister and running for Mayor? What's the actual point of HIVE and Genesis? And why did they rip off The Simpsons Movie?
We did get a fun appearance from Vixen though - a character from the horrible underdeveloped mini-series that the CW have no intentions of showing outside of the US - which actually worked really well for the show. Can we have more Vixen please? And more Constantine? Or maybe they can join the Legends of Tomorrow?
Overall, Arrow is getting better with these recent episodes. Its still not as strong as it was in the first two seasons and there is a lot the show has to perform damage control on in the fallout from season 3. In fact, the show has now gotten rid of the League of Assassins completely...for some reason. The Felicity stuff is still rubbish, Curtis Holt is a fun character with too small a role and Felicity's dad being a villain called "the Calculator"...seriously?