Arrow - The Rest of Season 1

I chose to head this post with a picture of Oliver and Felicity, because duh. I
am turning into such a shipper.

Man, I sort of dropped the ball on Arrow after the first five episodes.

Here then is my round up of Season 1 (I am currently watching Season 2 and I know Season 3 is running but I watch it with my girlfriend and we have a baby daughter who is not watching Arrow yet thanks.)

Season 1 took a long while to get started, stretching out the island flashbacks and featuring a number of pretty similar episodes in which Diggle and Oliver argued about the Hood's methods, Detective Lance argued with his daughter and Laurel was held up as some sort of paragon while Felicity was overlooked and Walter roundly abused.

Fuck you, Arrow!

It was with the emergence of Malcolm Merlyn not merely as a mastermind but as the lethal physical threat of Black Arrow that the series got traction and started working more of an arc vibe. Even as Malcolm gave direction to the Hood side of the story, so Tommy Merlyn became the beating heart of the civilian story. He came into our lives as an irritating, shallow douchebag and grew into a likable, interesting and rounded character, was harshly betrayed by Laurel and yet still risked - and lost - everything to save her. It is only right that Season 2 goes on to make him the touchstone for Oliver's transformation from killer vigilante to hero; from Hood to Arrow.

The flashback sort of drags on and on, leading up to Oliver finally killing someone. Slade Wilson is a much more interesting character than island love interest Shado (Arrow Season 1 is kind of bad with love interests.) To bump something that came clear to me in the comments, Season 1's flashbacks are kind of just marking time until they can bring in a character who has to be kept secret until they appear in the present day timeline, and since that debut happens in early Season 2 we get 22 episodes of largely running in place. Until then, island Oliver is only allowed very limited growth.

Throughout the series, the action scenes are fantastic, and the interactions of Team Arrow in particular are adorable. There are a lot of characters, however, and some of them inevitably end up on the periphery. Thea and Roy are hit hardest, although Laurel takes a drop in Season 2 after the series shifts its romance focus to Oliver and Felicity and Tommy is out of the picture.