Arrow: Season 4 (2015/16) - Written Review
Most of this season did seem to
be damage control in the aftermath of Season Three, sorting out Thea's whole
resurrection storyline that just got dropped last season, following Nyssa al
Ghul's revenge against Merlyn, resurrecting Sara Lance, bringing Oliver back
into Team Arrow, repairing his friendship with Diggle, trying desperately to
forget about the stupid Al-Sahim/Ra's al Ghul arc that just went absolutely
nowhere and also trying to justify the show's continuing existence. I can't
deny that the writers had a lot to cope with, and if I was working on the show
I'd feel pretty pressured to deliver on something worthwhile, but the writers
only really lazily rush this all together. To be fair, these are difficult
series-changing decisions they're having to undo, but you'd think once all of
this damage control is out of the way that they can tell a decent story...and
they very nearly do!
You know what, if it wasn't for
the finale being very poorly-structured, it could have turned out really good.
The story was all there, it was just missing a proper structure to it all. They
very nearly crafted a complex character in Damien Darhk, despite his occasional
fourth-wall-breaking quips, but then they just kind of mucked it all up. The
finale didn't quite stick the landing, although it did resolve everything
better than I thought it would.
There are still some big
problems though. There's a huge ARGUS/Suicide Squad-shaped hole left in the
series which basically screams "we lost the rights", the flashbacks
are still awful and ultimately just pointless and Felicity takes up far too
much story-time in the season. Every time I thought the writers would go
somewhere remotely interesting with Felicity, they blew it. Having her shot in
the spine and permanently stuck in a wheelchair? What an interesting idea...oh
wait, her mate's got some magic drug that sorts that out for her. Having her
father be a super-villain? They could be interesting...oh no, he's actually an
alright guy and not evil whatsoever. Having someone go a revenge mission to get
back at Felicity for her work with Team Arrow? That could go somewhere...oh
wait, they've got the weird bee woman from The Flash.
Then the show has some
fantastic guest stars. We get Matt Ryan returning as John Constantine, we get a
guest appearance from Vixen herself and Roy returns...but all only stick around
for just under an episode and feel sorely missed throughout the rest of the
season.
Oh, and Laurel died. Because I
guess the show didn't have the guts to kill off a character anyone cared about
anymore.
But then again, the action is
still great, some of the one-off villains are much more creative an
entertaining, the more comic book-y approach makes the show that bit more fun
and the whole storyline with Diggle's brother was actually really good...it's
just mixed in with a load of other stuff that doesn't work.
I'm really hoping Season Five
builds on the good stuff from this season and aims for better. Hopefully Arrow
can get out from under the shadow of the failure of Season Three and build to a
much better future. So far, looking at Season Five, it looks like the show's
trying to be a bit more street-level as it used to be, which is pretty great,
and they sorted out Oliver's Green Arrow costume so that's pretty great. Also,
I like the addition of Curtis Holt, so him becoming a main character is
something I'm pretty happy to see. Overall though, I'm not overjoyed with
Arrow: Season Four, but it's watchable enough for now.
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