Arrow Season 2

Media type: Television
Title: Arrow
Released: 2013-2014
Watched before?: No

Hey peeps and welcome to a review of Arrow season 2. At least, that’s what Netflix told me I was playing. I’m not quite sure based on the content I ended up watching.


At this point in the media, superhero-related content is never really going to break the mold on what it’s willing to do to tell a story. It’s never going to revolutionize media content like it did in the beginning because there simply are too many heroes and villains in play. Because there is a built-in fanbase, they can’t break the limits of these characters without fundamentally turning on their only guaranteed viewership. I understand people who feel like superheroes are greatly hindering writers and directors to be able to tell unique, original stories. The entertainment market isn’t set up in a way for those to succeed without an extreme amount of luck. Superheroes, unfortunately, are the genre of choice for the moment and have been for quite some time.

I’m someone who is okay with this. It happens to be a genre I connect with more than other genres. While I say this, I absolutely do not think that the genre is infallible. There have been plenty of superheroes that I have no interest in and don’t wish to watch on my screen, big or small. I accept the criticism leveled at the genre and also have my own desires to see it grow. The only thing I don’t accept is the criticism leveled at viewers who want to watch this genre. There is nothing wrong with liking superheroes. There is nothing wrong with being excited for the stories that get told, the characters we get introduced to, the worlds we get to inhabit. Sometimes, I don’t want to watch a dissertation in movie format. Sometimes, I just want to watch the good guys beat up the bad guys.

All of that to say, this show is passable. I have a lot of issues with the show, which will become further detailed below. It’s a CW show, which is a network that doesn’t have a stellar reputation with writing and acting. I don’t believe I’ve actually watched a “proper” CW show before, suffice to say, I’ve watched shows from its predecessor networks, the WB and UPN, but never a show that was specifically on the CW. After watching this season of Arrow, I get a fuller picture of what that reputation entails. I know that this isn’t a show that’s emblematic of what the CW produces, but it paints a picture. I also know that the CW has produced actual, worthwhile shows but it veers more toward the campiness of Riverdale and Arrowverse than the highlights of Jane the Virgin and Crazy Ex-Girlfriend.

Honestly, the biggest issue with the show is that it’s not a show about the Green Arrow. Yes, the main character may be named Oliver Queen and he was shipwrecked on an island but this character is not the Green Arrow. I’m not an expert in DC comics, which is strange because it seems to be the only media I”m capable of reviewing. From what I could tell from a summary I read of the Green Arrow character, my feelings on what the show was portraying was correct. This is Batman pretending to be Green Arrow. The characters may be lifted from Green Arrow’s comics but the stories fall closer in line to Batman’s. I didn’t come into this show to watch another adaptation of Batman. I wanted to watch a character outside of the DC trinity get a chance to shine.

Now, I don’t know if this issue gets fixed further on in the show, but it’s an issue for this season. Mostly because a majority of those elements don’t get fleshed out into their own creations. Deathstroke is the only exception, which I will discuss in a minute. But having the League of Assassins and Cyrus Gold and the Suicide Squad complete with a bad ADR Harley Quinn and a city that functioned more like Gotham than not really highlighted how much the showrunners wanted this show to be about Batman and not Green Arrow. I’m not saying that was their actual intention, but it didn’t feel like they wanted to spend time on adapting Oliver Queen’s world. They would rather throw elements in that didn’t fully make sense than actually try and make Starling City a place that would coexist with Gotham and Metropolis. This wouldn’t irk me as much if they tried to give any small explanation for any of these elements, but they would rather make it fanservice than have it service the story.

The villains, while the best part of the season, are a major hindrance in establishing the Green Arrow. I say this because most of the major villains shown are Batman’s villains. There’s the League of Assassins, headed by a still unseen Ra’s al Ghul. The League is a part of Batman’s story, from his training to one of his romances to Damien’s existence. It’s a core part of how Batman can even try to be a superhero. Here, it serves as a mysterious shadow organization that Sara and Merlyn have to go run away to every so often to write them out of the story for a bit. I understand that they needed to introduce something to explain how Sara learns how to fight on Oliver’s level when she returns as the Canary, but they don’t really establish a good enough reason why it had to be the League of Assassins. Especially because we still aren’t privy to that part of Sara’s backstory on what happened in the intervening years. For being a mysterious organization, it feels really cheap whenever they appear because it means nothing by the end of the episodes. Sara just goes back and forth, however the plot needed her, instead of making a choice for the character and sticking with it.

There’s the issue of Cyrus Gold, a character that amounted to one - two episodes, but you bet that they said the Solomon Grundy rhyme. You know, just to really hammer it home that Cyrus Gold is this famous Batman villain. Again, there was no reason that this needed to be Cyrus Gold, except for fans to be excited that they recognized the name. It means nothing to the story because the character meant nothing to the story. If you’re going to put the recognition in, also put in the work to make it mean something. All it did was make me roll my eyes.

This makes me mad because the writers did show that they could put in the work. Deadshot and Deathstroke are two villains who they transformed into Green Arrow’s villains for the purposes of the show. They gave Deadshot a real story with Diggle because it makes sense for that character to not be tied to only one hero. He’s a mercenary which makes him much more mobile to eliminate targets. He’s not going to terrorize only Gotham if he’s not paid for it. While the Suicide Squad concept paid off to absolutely nothing, since it amounted to Deadshot and three villains you can kind of remember being defeated by Arrow, he was still a real character within that episode. He had real motivations and feelings about what he was doing and that’s the difference between how they’ve handled using Batman elements in the show.

For me, Deathstroke was the biggest positive of the season. Slade is mainly a Teen Titans villain, but I did find out that he and Green Arrow have faced off in the comics. Not to the extent that the show portrays, but enough to establish a connection between the two. The show built such a great backstory for these two that it almost forgave having flashbacks on the stupid island for a second year. The hurt and rage he felt toward Oliver was powerful, especially in the quieter moments. They had one of the best established relationships of the season. Bennet and Amell worked off each other and elevated the material even when it was at its most tired. The continuous island flashbacks only worked because Bennet played the line between over-the-top and serious with precision. Yes, there were a few points where it didn’t work well, but Bennet could reliably come back from those moments to the quieter moments with relative ease.

One thing I can count on myself to do is overthink a show, even one as simple as this. My biggest question is, how did Slade become so established in Starling without literally anyone knowing about him until he’s revealed to the audience? After he’s revealed, it seems as though he’s a known entity from the way the reporters treat him after his arrest for kidnapping Thea. Best guess is that he is a shadow investor for whatever corporation Isabel originally worked for before becoming a major shareholder at Queen Consolidated. But after Sara returns to Starling and the Mirakuru started appearing, Oliver should have questioned way earlier if Slade really had died on the freighter. It definitely makes for better tension to have the revelation happen at the Queen’s mansion, but Oliver shouldn’t have discounted that Slade could have still been alive. I’m guessing between Moira’s trial and Oliver’s disappearance back to the island, Team Arrow wouldn’t have been too focused on another businessman throwing money around in Starling. Especially since Oliver would have been the only one to know the significance of the name.

The island flashback became very tired throughout the season. At certain points, it felt like they had to put in the flashback instead of letting the episode flow naturally without it. They did introduce a new location, the freighter, but it quickly became as tired as the island. The continuous back and forth of being on the island, then the freighter, then the island, then the freighter grew cumbersome with each switch. The introduction to the captives of the freighter meant nothing beyond Sara initially being one of them. Obviously, the Russian guy is going to come back at a later date considering Oliver’s connection with the Bratva, but at this point, I don’t care. They were expendable and the show mostly treated them that way. I don’t need a play-by-play of how Oliver trained himself enough to become the Arrow. I don’t need to know the crazy five years he had between the shipwreck and his reappearance. Since they don’t seem to be listening to that, at least let Amell stop wearing that terrible wig in the flashbacks.

The second biggest issue I have with the show is how the female characters are treated. Overall, their existence relies on Oliver. Everything that happens relates back to Oliver and they cannot exist with their own motivations without Oliver eventually coming along and being a catalyst for them. This isn’t universal but it’s a pattern that has crept up for the most part. Laurel exists solely to be kidnapped. Even in universe, she is set up as expendable when the DA’s office is trying to catch Helena. If Laurel exists in an empty apartment, someone is going to attempt to kidnap/drug her. Despite being a capable lawyer with demons of her own, she mostly exists to cause pain for her father or Oliver. It is nice that the show acknowledges that she has had to go through her share of traumatic experiences without help, but I feel that polarizes people to her character. When the show lets her, she shines. Her acting as the lead attorney during Moira’s trial was great. Her unresolved issues with Sara made complete sense. Turning to pills and alcohol to numb the extreme pain she was in was realistic. But, knowing how this plays out for female characters, I know people simply don’t like her character. That is valid. People are allowed to not like characters. But the show doesn’t particularly seem to like Laurel either. She spends most of the season being kicked around after Moira is found not guilty. She exists as a morality pet for Sara and Oliver, to get her out of harm’s way. That’s not a character. That’s an excuse.

Thea exists in almost the same fashion, except that everyone just lies to her and expects her to be okay with it. Anytime she faces trouble, it’s to get a rise out of Roy and Oliver. Again, the show sets her up as someone that has to be protected without giving her any strengths. With how Thea’s story ends in the last episode, it seems that they are going to try to give her strength. I worry that the show thinks the only strength a female can exhibit is physical strength and not mental fortitude as well. I want Thea to come back mentally stronger. She still doesn’t know Oliver’s secret identity and doesn’t know the full story of Roy’s either. All she knows is that her world keeps being upended by a new secret every few months, under the guise that they were protecting her. I know the show is going to lean into Thea being Malcolm’s daughter and giving her power through that. I just hope the show doesn’t forget that Walter is a great positive force in her life. I wish the show had better established that Walter was a father to her at a time when her perceived father had died and her real father was still unknown. The show did a great job transitioning her from party girl to responsible club owner. I would’ve just liked the show to continue that trajectory more than where it seems to be headed.

Felicity is a little more complicated, in that she still exists as a morality pet for Oliver but she does get to participate in the action since she’s part of Team Arrow. The show ramped up the fact that Felicity has deep feelings for Oliver. I will admit that the chemistry is there between Amell and Rickards. They are really good at the held glances. I have more of an issue when they have to actually act the romantic tension scenes. Rickards was absolutely off her game in the season finale in the Queen’s Mansion. Felicity acted more like a petulant teen than a grown woman ready to fight. Amell isn’t much better at selling the romance once he has to speak. Considering how condescending he is toward Felicity, it’s hard to buy that he actually has deep feelings for her. I don’t need there to be a love story in the middle of a superhero show. Overall, I don’t feel like the love stories are developed well and they usually end up detracting from the main plots. I can absolutely see Oliver and Felicity heading for this route, particularly because Felicity is a great candidate for getting kidnapped. There was a minor subplot with Felicity wanting to learn to fight, but the show gave up on that, dismissing it as jealousy toward Sara about Oliver. While I commend the show for showing that Felicity’s strengths lie in hacking, being on Team Arrow should also mean that she might have to learn to defend herself physically every once in a while. The show doesn’t see it that way. The show also does not want to give her any depth beyond hacking and feelings for Oliver. Any information that Felicity offers up seems to be something that the writers just threw at a wall of suggestions and decided to put it in the episode. I would like Felicity to evolve as a person beyond Oliver, but knowing where that relationship is headed, I don’t trust the writers to actually try.

Introducing Sara back into the story was smart, but she’s still bound to Oliver. They restart their romantic relationship, despite the absolute lack of chemistry between Lotz and Amell. It feels like they did that so the writers could say that they tried to write a relationship between Green Arrow and Black Canary, but it just didn’t work. Since the show doesn’t seem to care about the source material, that argument works slightly better. Introducing Sara into the flashbacks wasn’t as smart. I didn’t need Sara to also have inhabited Lian Yu with Oliver. It would’ve been stronger if we had seen that Sara had her own story that got her back to Starling. Partly, she did. We don’t know where she went after leaving Oliver on the freighter. Since the show seems to love flashbacks so much, it would have been nice to have some of Sara’s take place at a different point in time. Overall, I feel like Sara is the much stronger hero, character wise, over Oliver. She actually protects her family. She knows how to make the tough calls, when she has to act morally grey. She’s got the compelling hero arc this season, not Oliver.

Now, I could go on for quite a while about various other things that happened in the season. I’ll address some of them below in a section below, but I can’t just keep writing forever. No one has read this far anyway. From what I can tell, this might be the best season of Arrow the show offers which does not bode well for me going forward. The show was never going to be groundbreaking, but it’s nice, mindless entertainment.

Odds and Ends:

• Why in the world is Quentin’s middle name Larry? That doesn’t go together. Also, why is he the only person to get the middle name treatment when he’s arrested? Is there another Quentin Lance in the SCPD? I highly doubt it.
• Shado’s actress is not great when she is the figment of someone’s imagination. She’s not horrible when she’s alive, but some of her line readings when she’s haunting Slade are not great.
• The show really does not care about Diggle. He constantly gets shafted off to ARGUS and Lyla, rather than help Team Arrow. All of his storylines seem to be about how much we don’t know about him and Team Arrow does not care. He literally goes and has his own adventures and Oliver does not care.
• Were they trying to make Sebastian to be a Scarecrow-like figure? It’s mostly the mask, but him killing his father plays into the thought as well. I know the Mirakuru wasn’t about fear, but it just seemed strange that they designed the mask to look like Scarecrow’s.
• In Barry’s two episodes, I already liked him more as a hero than Oliver and he’s not even the Flash yet. Granted, I don’t know how Barry is actually portrayed in his own show, but it seems like they stay further away from the weird Batman-like elements which make Oliver a bit more intolerable.
• I have to give Oliver credit in having Slade locked away on the island instead of the ARGUS facility in/near Starling City. There’s no doubt in my mind that Slade will eventually escape, but at least he has to put in effort to get to Starling instead of just being already within city limits.