More to the point though, the season opener was a real back to basics affair in the most positive way. Yes Oliver is now in the dual roles of Mayor and vigilante, something I’m sure old school Green Arrow comic book fans are happy about, but the episode was all about the Green Arrow cleaning up the streets, particularly in the wake of the arrival of new crime boss Tobias Church played by Chad L. Coleman. The Walking Dead alum cut an impressive figure as the new non super powered big bad, even if his plan to lure out the Green Arrow fell into pure comic book trope by way of kidnapping the hero in his civilian identity to do it.
Oliver and Felicity were working well together with almost zero reference to their previous relationship that controversially turned so many people off or onto ARROW, depend on your preferences. Thankfully the completely inorganically generated angst was left off the table, Felicity and Oliver seeming to revert to their season 1 selves. Felicity even seems to have a nice new boyfriend, a cop named Billy… so how long before the love triangles begin eh?
Thea is now working full time as Oliver’s Mayoral aide I guess – I honestly didn’t catch her job title - and despite a brief jaunt in the red as Speedy in episode 1 to back up Oliver, she seems content to try and save the city through more legit means, particularly taking issue with Oliver taking lives again. Doubly adorable, if that is the right word, is Thea’s developing relationship with Quentin Lance, as she tries to help him find a purpose to stay sober following Laurel’s death last season.
Diggle is in Europe after having re-enlisted, starting with a sort of cameo in the first episode, before branching off into his own sub-plot proper in the second, in a really intriguing development for the show. He runs afoul a rogue unit intent on stealing a weapon and selling it, after having seemingly abandoned their principles in the face of the near apocalypse at the end of Season 4, an event everyone now calls Genesis Day. Dig is framed for the crime and the murder of a fellow soldier, so I wonder how exactly he’ll end up back in Star City, which if we’re honest, is inevitable.
Convinced by Felicity and by Laurel’s last words, Oliver acquiesces to bringing on board new recruits to replace Thea and Diggle – and here is where my biggest problem lies. TV has a laundry list of shows whose final season features an “all new, all different” cast of characters, a common phenomenon brought about in part I believe because audiences simply don’t care for characters simply being replaced. The attempt to bring new life to the show is ironically the cancer that eventually kills it. Rick Gonzalez debuts as Rene Ramirez aka Wild Dog, the typical tough guy with an attitude problem. Madison McLaughlin returns as Evelyn Sharp, trying to actually earn the spot she was willing to seize last season. We’re only two episodes in so there’s plenty of time to develop these characters but it’s Curtis Holt, played by Echo Kellum, finally stepping up to the Mr Terrific moniker I’m most concerned by. They took a complete badass character from the comics, an Olympian with genius level intellect and turned him into a 90s sitcom gay best friend for Felicity. Now the positives of LGBTQ representation aside here, they seriously marred the character for me by turning him into such a wimp. When I saw the promo’s focussing on the new recruits, I ashamed to say my first thought was,” yep, this is going to be the final season of ARROW.” We’ll have to see of course but after all, we’ve only one year left of flashbacks before the show is brought full circle.
The flashbacks so far have seemed to revert to their season one function of explaining how Oliver learned the skills he utilises in the modern day, such as dislocating his thumbs to escape cuffs or the training exercise he used to train the new recruits, but it also furthered the story of Oliver fulfilling a promise to kill Kovar, the tyrant ruling Taiana’s village, by infiltrating the Bratva – the Russian mob, which is pretty much the only aspect of Oliver’s “five years of Hell” yet to be explored.
Finally, the new super beings in town, of which there are two and yes, they can be mistaken for one another – I know I did. Yet another hooded archer named Prometheus has turned up in Star City, apparently bent of destroying the Green Arrow himself, to the point of threatening Tobias Church that he’ll kill him if he tries to do the job himself. I’m about sick of both THE FLASH and ARROW reverting to the tried and tested, villain is an evil version of the hero and simply pray that when revealed, Prometheus’s identity is a decent enough shocker and not that he’s simply Tommy brought back from the dead thanks to Flashpoint, because that would be lame. Oh wait! It’ll probably turn out to be Felicity’s new boyfriend right? Way more interesting to me was the introduction of Ragman, played by Joe Dinicol, the only living victim of Havenrock, the town nuked by Damien Darhk by way of Felicity Smoak on Genesis Day. At first set up as a villain of the week, he ends up unmasking himself to the Green Arrow and allying himself to his cause. Now he’s a character I’m really excited to get to know, especially since I still don’t quite understand his powers. So he’s some kind of radioactive mummy crime fighter? That’s a thumbs up from me.
Written by Nick Whitney, ARROW Beat Writer -- Click here to read Nick's posts
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