Why We're Worried About Season 4 Of Arrow

Arrow's fourth season has begun, and in many ways it's showing a lot of promise. The action is good, the bad guy is really bad in new ways, but not everything is working out. Here are a few reasons why we're worried about season four.

Rather than the flashbacks we've come to love/hate in the last three seasons, in the first episode of the season four we're treated to a flash-forward. We see Oliver Queen standing over a grave six months into the future. We don't see whose grave it is, but to be honest we don't care. Just about every character in this show has died at least once already, so how the showrunners expect us to get worked up for another death is anyone's guess. It'll probably turn out to be a character we haven't met yet—who will probably be resurrected anyway. This whole "He's dead—no wait, he's alive" bit is getting old, and its continued use doesn't bode well for the rest of the season.

In the first three seasons of Arrow, John Diggle faced the world wearing a leather jacket and toting a Glock. This was good. He was a matter-of-fact ass-kicking ex-soldier. He didn't mess around with fancy weapons or outfits—he either punched the bad guy or he shot the bad guy. And he made a nice counterpoint to Oliver Queen, who very much did mess around with fancy weapons and outfits. At the end of season three, Diggle is advised to get a mask. And lo, in the opening episodes of season four, we discover John took the advice literally and put on a mask—well, more specifically a helmet that looks like a leftover from the set of 300. Worse, he's still wearing the leather jacket and toting the Glock, making him look less badass, and more simply bad. He's still a matter-of-fact ass-kicking ex-soldier, but where before he was outwardly unmemorable, he's now that big guy in the leather jacket and the weird helmet. Unless he gets a complete outfit and cool hero name ASAP—some online outlets theorize he's on his way to becoming a version of DC Comics' Guardian—this has the potential to be an awkward hangnail on the whole season.

After being drawn out of the vomit-inducing middle-aged paradise he had "escaped" to with Felicity, Oliver declares his intention to change the way he works and put a positive spin on things. So he rebrands himself as Green Arrow and then carries on as usual. This happens at the same time as we discover Starling City has been rebranded as Star City, bringing the TV series into line with the comic book—but we don't know why. It is not clear why attaching a color to his hero name should suggest a new way of working, any more than his redesigned outfit should suggest a new way of walking. This has the potential to sow nothing but confusion through the rest of the season unless he really does change his approach, and soon. And on the subject of his outfit, while it does look a lot more like the comic, it also makes Oliver look a lot more like a stripper. Although that may not worry some of the show's most ardent fans.

He admits it himself as he announces his candidacy: Oliver Queen is not "mayor" material, though the character has run for the position twice in the comics. Even the members of Team Arrow agree and spend a good period of time looking skeptical and sounding even more. The only advantage Oliver brings to the job would be his ability to dodge bullets, and the fact that he's willing to take a risk. Even a bad driver is better than no driver on a runaway train, right? But his ascendancy to the office of mayor brings an additional issue that hasn't occurred to anyone. While as a young irresponsible playboy, Oliver got a bit of publicity and was occasionally heard to speak, it was nothing compared to the publicity he will get as mayor. After a few weeks of press conferences he'll have to use the voice modulator constantly while in the role of the Green Arrow. Otherwise with a single sentence every criminal and passerby within earshot will recognise his voice and no amount of faking his death or faking someone else's will get him out of it.

Oliver's relationship with Captain Lance has been a bit up and down, to say the least. In season one, Lance blamed Oliver for Sara's death and opposed vigilantes on principle. Later, he still blamed Oliver for Sara's death but didn't hold it against him quite as much, and begrudgingly worked with the Arrow to get stuff done. In the season three, it seemed Lance had gone off the deep end and decided that the Arrow was to blame for everything that was going wrong and put a price on his head—a price that was only paid by Roy Harper pretending to be the Arrow and faking his own death. At this point Lance knows Oliver is the Arrow, but is unable to prove anything since everyone thought Roy was the Arrow. Then, in season four, Oliver has somehow managed to get Lance back on side and is even breaking into his house at night for a quiet chat. So far, so teenage drama. If this were another show we'd be waiting to find out that Lance is actually Oliver's daddy—except that already happened with Thea Queen and Malcolm Merlyn, so of course it couldn't happen again. Anywho, this has gotten pretty confusing, and it's hard to know from one episode to the next whether Lance will work with the Arrow or try to take him down. It would be nice to find out once and for all where these two stand and move on to more pressing business.

On the subject of the good captain, Lance has been through a lot since season one: his daughter Sara died on the boat with Oliver, he was an alcoholic, he got demoted, he dried up, he got promoted, his daughter Laurel became an alcoholic, Sara came back from the dead, he had a heart attack, Sara died again but he wasn't told, then he found out, he's promoted again, he finds out Laurel has become a vigilante, he starts drinking again, Sara comes back from the dead again but isn't quite herself and he tries to shoot her but can't. Phew! So that raises the question: how has he not been committed yet? This guy should have retired and gone fishing in Florida by the end of season two, or at least gone completely bald after tearing all his hair out. One of two things needs to happen with Captain Lance in season four: he loses his mind completely (and possibly becomes a vigilante himself if), or he starts in on some serious therapy.

At the end of season three, Team Arrow had taken to referring to the Arrow's secret lair as the Arrow Cave, in a subtle reference to Batman and the original stylistic intentions of the Green Arrow comics. However it wasn't a cave, it was a basement. More of a hole really. A better name for it would be the Quiver (because that's where arrows sleep). It certainly rolls off the tongue easier. Unfortunately the team was required to abandon the Quiver and take up new digs in the basement of Palmer Technologies, which looked more like a repurposed locker room. This hideout also had to be abandoned, and now the team is meeting up in the basement of Oliver Queen's new campaign headquarters. And while the setup of this lair is certainly larger and more cave-ish, it still isn't a cave. They need to come up with a better name for the cave, and also a more discreet access point than the obvious elevator at the back of the campaign office overlooked by several dozen unpaid interns.

Names are a feature of this season, what with all the rebranding going on. But some areas are conspicuously in need of a new name, so much so that even the characters are pointing it out. John Diggle and Felicity Smoak are desperately in need of alter egos. It's pointless for John to wear a mask and Felicity to be hidden away in the Quiver if everyone keeps calling them by their first names in front of all the bad guys. Eventually someone will figure it out—and if they don't, then everyone in the show is dumber than the writers would like us to believe.