Tell-Tale TV Panel: Arrow Season 4

We started Arrow Season 4 with Oliver and Felicity taking a break from the vigilante life, and we ended the season Oliver and Felicity holding down the vigilante fort while everyone takes a break as they re-examine.

We also lost Laurel Lance this season, and so Team Arrow will never be the same.

How did season four do overall? Was it a success? Did it falter? Below, some of our writers share their opinion. Join the discussion by leaving your thoughts in the comments below.

Our panelists are:

• Lyra Hale, senior writer for Tell-Tale TV
• Lissete (Lizzie) Lanuza Saenz, associate editor for Tell-Tale TV
• Allison Nichols, staff writer for Tell-Tale TV

On a scale of 1 to 10, how would you rank the season overall?

Lyra: Overall, I’d give the season an 8. One point is docked because of the flashbacks. The other because they didn’t kill Malcolm Merlyn. Besides that, I loved Oliver’s journey and that of his loved ones. For the first time in the show I feel like everyone’s getting time to develop into storylines that are inherently their own. It gives me more people to cheer for at the end of the day!

Lizzie: I’m going to go with Lyra. 8 is a good number. I’m tempted to give it a 7 because the drama for the sake of drama was not my favorite, and the flashbacks were so boring I can’t even remember what happened in them, but the show held my attention all year.

And despite me wanting to break things while watching it at times, I never considered stopping, so that’s a good thing.

Allison: I’m going to say a 6. The flashbacks, per usual, continued to be the most boring thing on the entire universe. There was a lot of unnecessary drama, and I felt like the end of the season kind of whimpered out. It wasn’t my favorite Arrow season, and, um, I did consider stopping — well, finishing out the season but then stopping.

What was the season’s biggest mistake?

Lyra: The season’s biggest mistake was keeping William a secret from Felicity. As soon as Malcolm found out about William, he should have spilled it all in the hopes of protecting his son.

Felicity would’ve understood and would not have been hurt so much by the information. Hell she would’ve done anything to safeguard him against Damien because he was important to Oliver.

Also I’m pretty sure that Samantha wouldn’t be as mad with Oliver if he acknowledged that it was to protect his son. Keeping it a secret was a clear ploy to start drama for drama’s sake.  

Lizzie: William. Oh, God, William. Especially because they didn’t really deal with him afterwards. This wasn’t about Oliver learning to be a father, this was about breaking up Olicity, which they didn’t really need to do.

People CAN do their jobs (even if their jobs include arrows and saving the city) and be together. It’s like William happened, and then he was gone a few episodes later, and this changed nothing, meant nothing. It was drama for the sake of drama and I hated it.

Allison: William was a huge mistake. It was a pointless complication to a storyline that actually could have been really great. Like Lizzie said, after all this drama, William was forgotten about and then cast away, so we never really dealt with him.

I think that was a huge mistake, but I felt like there were a lot of pacing mistakes. What even was that season finale? There wasn’t a big lead up to a grand showdown, and then at the beginning of the season, we wasted a couple episodes setting up Legends of Tomorrow. Arrow was essentially put on hold to kickstart this new show.

What worked really well this season?

Lyra: I especially loved how the opening and closing of this season, echoed with each other. In the opening of the season, Oliver and Felicity had distanced themselves from Team Arrow to find a bit of normalcy and happiness as a couple. The rest of the gang was burdened with taking care of vigilante duties all on their own.

At the end of the season, Oliver and Felicity were still separated but ended up together once more. This time around, their friends were taking breaks from the vigilante life to find themselves (Heck they deserve down time to get their mental houses in order.) And while things are still uncertain for our heroes, there’s hope at the end of Season 4 that they’ll survive this, one step at a time.

Lizzie: I think the Olicity worked really well till they ruined it with drama. The “team within a team” kinda of thing was in full display, and I loved it. I also really liked how the tables turned for Oliver and Diggle, whereas Diggle was the one pointing Oliver towards the right path for most of the first three seasons, this time it was Oliver’s turn to be there for his brother.

Finally, I really liked that Oliver managed to take a step forward this season and do it by himself. He’s grown in the past 3 seasons, but he’s mostly done it because of Diggle and Felicity. This time he had to do it by himself.

Allison: I really enjoyed Oliver trying to find a way to be the Green Arrow and to save the city out in the daylight. The mayor storyline was actually really enjoyable, and I’m looking forward to see Oliver as the Mayor. We actually saw Oliver taking step into the light, and it was fun watching him question whether or not he could do it.

What was the biggest surprise of the season?

Lyra: The biggest surprise of this season comes in the form of Laurel Lance’s confession to Oliver on her deathbed. Laurel was 100% over Oliver. Making her confess this seemed like they were backtracking on the progress that she had been making as a person and as Black Canary.

Honestly wished they would’ve nicked that part and made it about her family. Oliver WAS a huge part of her life. Keyword: WAS. But the most important person to her wasn’t Oliver anymore. It was her dad, Sara, and even her mother. It was a mistake what they did.  

Lizzie: Well, not Laurel’s death, that’s for sure. That was obvious. The way they handled it, though, that was surprising.

From the obvious bone the threw to fans of the Lauriver relationship with that ill-conceived and frankly ridiculous deathbed confession to the awful flashback AFTER her death which basically annihilated her character, I was just …well, shocked, really, that even in the season they were going to kill her off these writers couldn’t really honor Laurel the right way.

Allison: God, Laurel’s deathbed confession was bad enough, but then they follow it with that horrendous episode that aired after that was supposed to honor her memory. I am still just so shocked that Laurel was treated so terribly.

What did you think of this season’s big bad?

Lyra: I kind of still don’t know how I feel about Damien Darhk. The magical aspect threw me off at every turn. It felt like this man was better suited at being a villain on another show. (Perhaps Legends of Tomorrow? Oh wait. They already have a creeper.)

Also he left little girls in caves and wanted to destroy the world because he didn’t want his daughter to live without his mother. Single parents do exist Damien!

Lizzie: I really liked him at first. Wait, no, I really liked him up to the end, I just thought the end plan wasn’t something they sold well.

The final two episodes kind of soured me on him a bit – not because I expected him to change his plans to save his daughter, no, but because I expected him to behave with a little more…emotion. Either that or they needed to paint him as a full on psychopath before, which they never did.

Allison: I enjoyed him for the most part. I liked his charisma, and I loved seeing Team Arrow tackle a big bad that used magic, something Team Arrow wasn’t familiar with. Like Lizzie said, the end episodes just did not work.

I could never really gauge how he felt about his family, and considering he wanted to build a better world, I felt like we should have seen more emotion from him. In that aspect, Darhk just didn’t work.

Arrow Season 5 premieres Wednesday October 5 at 8/7c on The CW.

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