From Year Five back to Year One – In anticipation of Arrow Season 5

There’s a lot to unpack in a show that has gone on for nearly a hundred episodes, especially when that show is Arrow. If you follow the show off the air with even half intensity, there are particular themes and motifs that the audience will constantly harp on. In some ways, Arrow is a show that pioneered and succeed in its particular subgenre but now seems to have become a shadow of its former self. In other respects, Arrow, and other shows that it shares a universe with (chiefly among those, The Flash, Legends of Tomorrow, and Supergirl, along with Gotham in a different but similar orbit) are still part of a similar TV tradition that still continues today in the network TV space.

For me, a show like Arrow is still very elemental despite being touted as a flashy “superhero” show. It still borrows a lot of structural conventions from traditional episodic TV and continues the evolution of that practice. In some ways, shows that include and spawned off from Arrow (especially all of DC's live action TV ventures) I would almost consider “cop procedurals” (if we are going to borrow the pejorative) with a superhero twist and some light to medium light serial storytelling. It’s also why I might stand alone when I say that Arrow still fascinates me even during its (sometimes many) nadirs in its run, because it does try its best to do so much in some a structured fashion, with a hefty episode count. Similarly I do like The Flash and Supergirl for specifically the same reasons, but I still find Arrow an intriguing look on the network-length superhero show and how it has evolved over time, sometimes in incredibly drastic ways. One particular aspect I want to address here is the evolution around the show in the character of Oliver Queen, possibly one of the initial hooks into the show that, even after all these years of ups and downs, still has me intrigued, especially as the fifth season has been, since the show's inception, somewhat of a defined ending point for a series that could very well continue well past that point.

Perhaps the one thing I am still excited for and fascinated about (even when at times the show will test my patience), is how the creators attempt to handle the evolution and the journey of Oliver Queen in both past and present. Don’t get me wrong; the last two seasons in that respect were sometimes shaky at best and fundamentally flawed at worst. I don’t always agree with the decision the show has made in this particular arena. But at last with the fifth season – with the structure the show both the audience and creators have become accustomed to – this is the final year in hell for Oliver Queen before he returns and he begins his path to redemption and recovery that we see in season one – finally comes to its end.

 

It's become pretty clear now that there never was a real plan of any sorts during Oliver's five-year journey. If there was, it was a vague notion at best. At times it seemed to be executed to near-perfection (much of season one and especially season two) and some which were poor missteps (season three) and just almost flat out ignored (season four's return trip) that make it almost feel like the show wanted – or still wants – to grow out of this particular structural constraint.

 

The presence of a flashback plotline has long since been popularized structurally to help compare and contrast events occurring in the past and present to inform story, character and theme. At least for me, that is the strongest use of flashbacks in storytelling, borne not from Lost, but definitely popularized by it. Which is why I feel that although it was at times a strong fundamental to Arrow's storytelling in the beginning, I get the impression that the creators and writers cannot wait to jettison the need for a season-long past storyline, possibly preferring to instead deploy flashbacks in vignettes or one-off, more character-focused episodes, as they have done in similar instances of The Flash and Supergirl.

 

As the show has evolved, it has grown less centered on Oliver Queen's evolution and turned more into an ensemble show. One surprising comment made me question this, when one of the hosts of the Idle Weekend podcast, Rob Zacny, spoke of his experience with rewatching Arrow, and how it has evolved. Zacny asserts that Arrow has slowly grown from the show about a dark and brooding hero into a show where the central character has reformed (in some respects) and establishes a found family of crimefighters. In many respects, that is what has happened to Arrow. A lonely man's journey has created a family, and it seems the creators are intent on such a trajectory. My knowledge in comics is very limited, but from my view, it feels like in many ways, the creators are trying to create a sort of crimefighting family in similar respects to the "Batfamily" in the Batman comics and universe.

 

Part of me feels the show is more than ready to finish off Oliver Queen's "five years in hell" origin story – possibly having it proven to be too cumbersome – and get it over with.

 

Throughout the first season of the show, the show was very particular and measured about using flashbacks and their relevance to the present. Many of those stories were centered on Oliver's first year (or so) on Lian Yu, and how a somewhat vapid playboy transformed into more of a measured, calculating fighter despite no formal military training or anything. They connect to show that though Oliver has returned and improved in some ways, it showed that he still had much to learn despite five hard years that made him a better crimefighter. There was always that push and pull between the younger Oliver finding his inner strength and courage to help his newfound friends, contrasted with the cold husk of a man in the present trying to forge – or in some cases reforge – bonds with people again.

 

The second season – which many fans tout as the highlight of the series – placed a relatively large amount of narrative strength in the flashback story. In some cases, the stories in both past and present ran parallel in every aspect of the show. Much of the Lian Yu story became even more like an action-adventure show situated inside a much more action-procedural show. And maybe that is why it is remembered so fondly, especially when you consider both plotlines build on the chemistry of the actors involved, as they find themselves almost repeating history in some way. The present doesn't just foreshadow Slade Wilson's contempt for Oliver Queen, they declare it quite loudly and then make us watch as it inevitably happens, and nearly every step in the execution is well measured. In hindsight, to me, it now feels as if season two overall was itself a fluke in some respects.

 

The confusion comes when season three and four happen, because part of me feels as if the creators forgot how the make these narrative strengths work for them, and simply replaced it with meandering plot.

 

Season three follows Oliver pulled out of the sea and placed into Hong Kong under ARGUS supervision. Amanda Waller wants to turn the potential she sees in Oliver Queen (after both the Fyers and the Slade Wilson/Amazo/Mirakuru incidents) into an asset. Parts of the past-present dynamic collide at times to try to evoke a similar sentiment as season two did. The only problem is that many of the elements that made season two great – a comrade of Oliver's is now an enemy, and the use of a kind of McGuffin in the form of the Omega (to be like Mirakuru) – don't feel as organic as they did. Slade Wilson worked because he had that rapport with Oliver in two seasons on Lian Yu; whereas Maseo and his family really only worked as a shorthand without any of the effort earned, even by season's end when his son is killed and Maseo and Tatsu become estranged; Maseo's association with the League of Assassins really just a poor attempt to tie the year together mechanically. Mirakuru worked as a story element because it was introduced early and was a prominent aspect of both past and present, interweaving into both the developments on Lian Yu and Slade Wilson's plans in the Star City, whereas the Omega virus appeared later into season three and only became a real factor as a doomsday device by the finale, being treated nothing more than a plot device.

 

Oliver's journey this season feels off at times. Although in a sense, Oliver in some form or apprentice or train under Waller and Ra's in past and present respectively, those threads never quite connect. A lot of the talk of Oliver's inner demons only ever came up when they were convenient – most prominently in Waller's initial training, and as he tortures and kills the man responsible for unleashing the Omega virus in Hong Kong – and is promptly pushed aside for the most part. Isolation felt like one of Oliver's more prominent themes but really only ever affects Oliver on any emotional sense in the present and is more of a mechanical one during his adventures in Hong Kong. I still feel that much of Hong Kong could've been simplified down to Oliver becoming emotionally conflicted and wresting with his inner monsters, finally unleashing it and becoming ashamed of what resulted from it: mayhem, death and destruction.

 

Whereas the present story (which arguably had a stronger through line) did attempt this, much of the time where Oliver does isolate himself from his friends is sometimes done to artificially create drama, especially without much help of the backing of any contrast/comparison to his journey and transformation in Hong Kong to provide any reinforcement. Perhaps instead, a present Oliver who believes himself more confident, moves to isolate himself to try to head off or destroy the League from within (after finding his friends keep being targeted by the League, making him feel vulnerable and responsible for their well-being and guilty for the danger they befell) still fails on his own but is ultimately helped by his friends and teammates to overcome Ra's; whereas in the past, Oliver finds his reliance on others starts to impede his progress to detrimental, if not fatal outcomes. Much of this actually does exist, but I felt that any execution was left floundering when it came time to connect together.

 

Season four goes one step further and it becomes clear that Oliver's return to Lian Yu is a fairly pointless exercise. The introduction of magic is squandered despite a fairly decent storyline tied to Damien Darhk's machinations for Star City. Very little of Oliver's mission to Lian Yu to stop Reiter ever informs Oliver's present. Even though Oliver himself witnessed the effects of the same magic that Darhk wields in the past, there is no correlation to it besides a token mention of it.

 

Even taken at face value, Oliver in Lian Yu faced a terrible power that consumed his friends and took the lives of innocent people. So it seems incomprehensible to me that Oliver – upon learning of Darhk harnessing the power of magic – was not so much shellshocked or surprised by any of it. Any of those reactions could have easily facilitated some sort of transformation or inner search in Oliver to help him find some way around (or even some inner strength) to overcome Darhk or harness similar magic against him. But admittedly, by the end of it, there was but a small transformative moment as the finale showed the city uniting behind both Oliver Queen and the Green Arrow in somewhat clumsy, The Dark Knight Returns-esque street brawl over the looming specter of nuclear apocalypse.

 

My only apprehension is that any connective tissue between the past and present that existed was very thin. The same source of magic that Reiter was in search of and that Darhk relied on was really the only true thing anyone could point to. Oliver's experiences only barely came up in the proceedings of the season (and mostly relegated to explaining how he knew John Constantine). I also found very little difference in Oliver on Lian Yu and the present; at times it felt as if the present Oliver was suddenly dropped into a minor C-plot to go through the motions of the island plot and his consciousness was suddenly returned to the present with no memory of those events. And although Tatiana eventually succumbs to the darkness of the magic and the idol, the connection to Oliver is somewhat lost as at most times she is reduced to the role of a Bond girl at times, and at worst serves mostly as a way for Oliver to make his trip to Russia, in what I felt was a relatively unearned gesture.

 

Perhaps a stronger development would have been for Oliver to take control of the idol's magic, making him slowly succumb to darkness in an attempt to stop Reiter and his men. And perhaps by the end of it he would've fought it off, killing innocents (including Tatiana in the process), but he would've felt its lingering effects up until the present, and perhaps it could've also allowed to show Oliver's development as someone who is frankly, scared of the power Darhk wields, afraid of what happened to him and the darkness it could (re-)awaken in him (as most of S4 fundamentally wants to show Oliver reform as the Green Arrow into more of a heroic crimefighter, struggling to fight his actual darkness that he keeps bottled within), and to search for solutions to tackle Darhk and HIVE without relying on magic and its corrupting effects.

 

And this brings me back to my slight apprehension with where season five might head. At the very least, the show will bring the flashbacks to a conclusion with a ragged, scarred and broken, bearded Oliver Queen lighting the signal to re-enter the world publically and begin his journey we've been following him on the last four years. But the final season must also address one more of Oliver Queen's developmental pillars - that of his association with the Russian Mafia before we reach that final scene that opened the series.

 

The middle years proved to be fairly rocky as – in my assertion – that the creators were not entirely sure how Oliver's path was supposed to unfold in both past and present. I will agree in some sense it is somewhat of a transitional period for the character, who is becoming more capable and starting to resemble more of the man who becomes the Arrow/Green Arrow. But for the final year in hell leading up to the first year reborn, I feel as if there should be some even more tragic break (if season three's having to watch a friend's son die as a biological disaster unfolds and you torture a man for vengeance's sake; or if season four's task of having to kill a woman to stop her from being subsumed by the darkness of an unimaginable power are neither sufficient) that completes the transformation.

 

With that in mind, there is somewhat of a definitive ending for the flashbacks proper by the end of Arrow season five. Despite most of my misgivings, I am curious on where the journey will take us. If Oliver's last year in hell is truly despicable, then it should only make sense that Oliver's fifth year as a crimefighter should be mostly positive, or one of reform and greater betterment to contrast with an Oliver that sheds away any last semblance of humanity to hone himself into the tool that he wants to become to fulfill his father's dying wish at the start of his journey.