Arrow Review

The opening season is better than its reputation, and the reason is restraint. Oliver Queen is a killer, the show admits it, and the island flashbacks are still short enough to be a genuine second story rather than a chore. Stephen Amell is limited as an actor but exactly right physically, and the network built its whole shared universe on this foundation. The problems compound season by season. The flashback structure keeps going long after there is anything left to reveal, requiring ever more implausible detours to Russia and Hong Kong.

The core team swells until half a dozen masked people stand in a basement discussing feelings, and each new arrival demands an origin. Villains arrive with a plan to destroy the city, then a plan to destroy the city, then a plan to destroy the city. David Ramsey and Emily Bett Rickards give the show more warmth than the writing supplies. Manu Bennett's Slade Wilson in the second season is the one antagonist who genuinely works, because his grievance is personal and earned.