Episode Title: Green Arrow
Original Airdate: 10-8-15
After some ups and downs last season with the whole Olicity and Ra’s al Ghul drama, the season premiere of Arrow had me feeling a lot more optimistic about the direction of Season 4. Even if the ultimate outlook won’t be so cheery for one of the main characters to see Season 5.
There was a lot of intriguing aspects to this week’s kickoff, not the least of which was that Hal Jordan reference at a Coast City bar flashback. Oliver isn’t interested in returning to Starling City since he doesn’t feel whole from his time on the island. Amanda Waller wants to use him as her weapon and forcibly sends him back to the island for a mission. I’m torn as to whether returning to the island is a positive thing, but I’ll let it play out.
The show-runners promised a lighter tone this season, which concerned some fans that wanted a firm distinction between Arrow and Flash. Initial impressions were solid as the humorous moments worked. Felicity itching to get back into action while Oliver was happy enjoying his break perfecting his culinary skills.Thea smiling while crime-fighting was a nice change of pace as well.
I wasn’t a huge fan of Team Arrow rushing back to Oliver for help the moment they run into some serious trouble. Neither Diggle or Oliver were all that excited about him returning to action. Granted, eventually the team encountered the super-powered Damien Dahrk who can suck the life energy out of people, but it still seemed a bit early for the group requiring Oliver’s help already.
Still, I was glad there wasn’t a lot of build-up for Oliver to assume the costume and declare to the newly-rechristened Star City that he’s here to help as Green Arrow.
The two major revelations though were that Det. Lance has aligned himself with Dahrk and that’s sure to cause major problems for everyone.This could be Paul Blackthrone’s signature season playing the hero who has lived long enough to be the villain and I’m very interested in seeing Lance’s fall from grace this year.
The second was one member of Team Arrow will be dead in six months. I was concerned seeing Grant Gustin in the cast listing for the episode thinking he would be crammed in for no good reason, but having him check on Oliver at the graveside was a fitting cameo.
This was a solid table-setting episode and while I’d still rank Flash as the best of this week’s comic book shows, Arrow wasn’t far behind.
Channel: Superhero 