How do I feel about Arrow Season 4? Allow me to answer that in the form of a gif:
I have thoroughly enjoy watching this cast and crew grow over the last couple of years. I admit, I missed most of the first season and kind of stumbled on it by accident. Then binge watched the hell out of it. Why did I miss it? Honestly, I didn’t really read Green Arrow growing up so I didn’t know much about him. So it never clicked with me. Though I’ve been reading them from the beginning to make up for the fact. Fortunately I have some friends that own a comic store so that helps. That and superhero television shows to that point just sucked.
Now we sit at the downtime of season 3, and what a season it was. Arrow is gone. Roy has left. Ra’s has been defeated and Oliver has broken trust with Team Arrow like never before. Oh my!
But as excellent as the previous three seasons were, season 4 is shaping up to be just as amazing, just substantially different.
By now you’ve heard that the show is changing it’s tone. It’s going away from the dark and broody Oliver that refuses to let anyone get close and just stomps around angry all the time. Not that he is ever going to be a ray of sunshine but he’s going to me more the smart ass quip throwing type of character that you see in the comics. And hopefully with the help of Palmer Tech get some of those freaky trick arrows.
And not only that but Diggle gets a suit! There hasn’t been a lot of information about it but it appears that it will mostly consist of a visored helmet meant to help disguise his identity. I am disappointed and think that DC and WB are missing an amazing opportunity to expand their line up in the TV world by pushing Diggle toward becoming the Green Lantern. It still might happen but it doesn’t seem to be heading that way.
We learned last week about the casting of Neal McDonough as Damien Darhk (you might remember him as Dum Dum Dugan in Captain America). And this week it was revelaed that Echo Kellum had been cast as Mr. Terrific. If you aren’t familiar with that character he is touted as the third smartest person in the DC universe and has these things called T-Spheres that basically serve as a Dues Ex Machina to keep him hidden from recording devices, hack computers and satellites, shock bad guys, and recon and espionage.
And they are finally going to explore the mystical and magical side of things. Though what exactly that entails we don’t yet know.
And let us not forget that Legends of Tomorrow will kick off sometime in January. There will be some build up to that and a three episode cross-over between Flash, Arrow, and the Legends whereby the new show will kick off and take flight (pun intended).
But all isn’t sunshine and roses for our Starling City Scooby Gang. There are lingering threads from the previous seasons that will have to be cleared up, not the least of which is what, if any, side-effects there will be for Thea’s resurrection via the Lazarus Pit. We don’t know anything about how that might change or affect her going forward, but it’s almost certain there will be some reckoning down the line.
And since Legends came up, I should mention the other resurrection that will be happening, that of Sara Lance as White Canary. There has been nothing said about how she comes back. One speculation is that it is the same Sara just a different point in her timeline or from a different timeline.
Then there is Malcolm Merlyn, a.k.a Al Sa-Her, a.k.a the Dark Archer, a.k.a Ra’s al Ghul. Things were left on less than pleasant terms (but with somewhat of a truce) between him and Oliver. Since he has played a role in every season thus far, and the main Big Bad for season 4 is affiliated with the League of Assassins (albeit distantly) we can expect him to have some air time. Especially since John Barrowman has confirmed he will returning.
And finally, Damien Darhk and H.I.V.E. We know very little about this version of H.I.V.E. other than Darhk runs it and it has some connection to the death of Diggle’s brother. In the comics it’s associated with Deathstroke, Gorilla Grodd (currently in Flash), Vandal Savage (the villain for Legends) and others.
The show runners and writers have said since the beginning that the first three seasons were basically one giant loosely connected arc. With the existing connections, and the potential ones to the new H.I.V.E. it’s possible that the next three could also be one giant arc with H.I.V.E at it’s core (as Merlyn and the League were before).
Either way it’s shaping up to be one hell of a ride.
Last Updated on January 12, 2019.
