"Arrow" Season 3 Review

Spoilers for Arrow Season 3

So, this sucks. I always hate waiting for TV shows to come back, especially when they leave on an ambiguous note like this one did. It's like being on a ride when suddenly the ride stops with the promise that it will get going again. "What do we do now?" I'll tell you what: we watch the series again in preparation for Season 4, bring on the DVDs/ Blu-Rays!

Though maybe I'll have to take a breath before jumping back into this season...

Like most seasons of the CW's Arrow I wasn't entirely sure where we were going to go with the show until we hit the mid-season finale/ Episode 9. For the first time in a while, though, I was really invested in everything leading up to that point, and I actually feel that much of the early material proved superior to some of the later material.

The season starts off just insane, with Sara being killed by someone we don't know and we're left to assume it's someone that should be pretty important or skilled. Then, for the next few episodes until we meet up with Barry Allen, it's a hunt for various archers that may have done her in. I really enjoyed seeing all these new characters, particularly since none of them were left for dead (that I can recall) and will probably reappear. Actually, the only one to not show up again is Komodo...but I have faith that this will change soon enough.

Plus, it added some serious mystery and suspense to a show that normally just relaxes in its early episodes. I mean, there was little tension in the early parts of Season 1 until Episode 9, and Season 2 picked up in Episodes 4 and 5 before somewhat dropping it and then picking it up in what might possibly be the best episode of the entire show, "Three Ghosts."

But the whole "who did it?" aspect of things made me coming back every week to see how the mystery would unfold. It was fairly obvious that the show would not run on this mystery for the entire season, but that, like Game of Thrones, this early incident would send shockwaves that would eventually send characters spiraling into various directions they may not have foreseen. Not only that, but it paved the way for a brevity of characters simply mentioned or guesting in Season 2 to make a return, such as the best woman of the show, Nyssa, to return (hate me) as well as our villain of the season, Ra's al Ghul.

This season seemed to rely more on the overall story, making it difficult to pick specific episodes that really stood out and "wowed" me. But, off the top of my head, I can think of three: "The Brave and the Bold," "The Climb," and "Public Enemies." Sadly, not the season finale so much, and that's in part because of the direction the story took.

I was on board for the whole "Oliver is conflicted about his identity" thing but I wasn't totally convinced that the right people were helping him out in his conflict. He kept going back to Felicity, which is actually not the person to go to because she doesn't necessarily understand what he's been through regarding the previous five years away. Oliver, instead, should have dedicated more time with his identity crisis to Diggle, or, perhaps, even Roy. Diggle has the experience of leaving the military but still knowing that he has to fight to protect his new family, and Roy was almost a criminal before becoming a vigilante reformed him.

Obviously the happy ending of the show is only going to last up until, at the most, the end of the first episode for next season. Kill Ra's al Ghul and don't expect repercussions from an outside party? Ha. No way. But it felt out of place with the rest of the series. It didn't feel like this was what we were building up to. Constantly, the show had Oliver almost quit before putting on the green suit and showing why he's the strongest player in the game. And then when it's all building up to him putting the suit on to fight Ra's al Ghul...he doesn't and he becomes, uh...Oliver Green? What? Nah.

The season was building up what felt like the rise of the Green Arrow, and perhaps that will eventually come to pass. It may just be that the "Arrow" persona is the more brooding type, and when Oliver goes through a costume change/ name change, he'll take on a lighter persona, as stated by the producers that the show will take a lighter tone in the coming season.

Certainly it could use it, but this tone was also implemented very well throughout the season. Ray Palmer, played excellently by Brandon Routh, had a few bad moments but was overall a real good addition to the cast. It actually kind of sucks that he'll be on Legends of Tomorrow starting next year, but hopefully he'l pop by time and again. Roy and Laurel rising into Arsenal and Black Canary was at first a bit on the dark side but morphed into showing that they can be fun characters in their roles, Laurel more-so than Roy. While there weren't as many laughs, it was still nice to see the characters able to do their thing.

Laurel as the Black Canary also felt pretty natural. Again, like Oliver's rising transformation, she had the past two seasons of character development/ regression to work off of. Sara's death was the trigger, and her working alongside Ted Grant was an interesting piece of the season's earlygoings. I like her look, her attitude, and the fact that through much of her early days, she was a lost cause on the battle-field, constantly being saved by a much younger Arsenal, yet who was also more experienced and prepared than her for this kind of thing. I'm not sure I entirely buy her being able to fight off League members that Diggle and Roy would normally struggle with, but what're you gonna do?

The one that doesn't make much sense, the more that I think about it, is Thea. I mean, sure, in five months time someone with extreme training can get a pretty fundamental grasp of how martial arts and weapons training works, but come on. She held her own against Oliver who, as we see, is the second most skilled fighter on the show (now the first, with Maseo and Ra's now dead), and she probably could have defeated that one random blonde guy that was hitting on her for a while. If there is a major time-skip, like a year or eight months or so, between Seasons 3 and 4, then I'll be able to buy it a little more.

Also how did she get Roy's outfit to fit her despite him having a much larger physique than she did? Is she good at tailoring these outfits now, too?

The flashbacks this seasons were also pretty "meh," just showing us how close Oliver and the Yamashiro family got. Sadly, they were ruined by the characters constantly mentioning what happens in them during the present-day, something I hope they fix up next season. It worked in Season 2 because, yeah, we knew that Oliver and Slade would fight and Oliver would somehow win, but they didn't explicitly state that Sara seemingly died during the fight and didn't mention that Oliver saved Sara over Shado until that was shown in the flashback. While things did heat up toward the end, it was a bit of a slow-burn as it had to deviate from Oliver escaping A.R.G.U.S. to him just wandering about Hong Kong looking for something that would only come into play later on.

I never got a serious vibe from the flashbacks and now more than ever was it evident that the writers put them into episodes just for the sake of tradition. If we're going to have flashbacks, they need to have weight. The flashbacks needed more Amanda Waller, more A.R.G.U.S., and more of Oliver's training. He can speak Chinese in the present time, but, I never saw him learning it. Unless he learned from Akio, in which case I have to ask when the heck that happened.

In the end, Arrow Season 3 was still a good season. A few misplaced arcs or character bits held it down, as well as some rather uninteresting flashback material, but there were several good mysterious and directions for characters to go in that kept the season afloat and helped keep the intrigue of the show up through to the end. It leaves us on an ambiguous note that, if anything else, definitely has me curious how the next season will start.

(Also the CW really needs to work on its marketing because showing Oliver in his League garb during The Flash promos before we know he's in the League is a major spoiler, thanks).


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