Arrow - Season 2 (first half; some spoilers)

Season 2 main cast (L-R) - Susanna Thompson, Manu
Bennett, Emily Brett Rickards, Stephen Amell,
David Ramsey, Willa Holland and Colton Haynes

After the moderately apocalyptic finale of Season 1, Arrow returns with Oliver in a bit of a slump. His mission has been revealed as a hollow lie, and it is down to his partners - Diggle and Felicity - to pull him out of a hole (figuratively speaking.)

Season 2 shakes things up a bit from the get go. With Moira arrested for conspiracy to commit mass murder, Oliver is forced to assume control of a foundering Queen Consolidated, in partnership with corporate raider Isabel Rochev (Summer Glau) and Felicity is transferred to act as his PA (much to her annoyance). Thea and Roy are running Oliver's club, Detective Lance is a peripheral member of Team Arrow and freshly busted to uniform duty and Laurel is out to bring down the vigilante for failing to save Tommy.

At the heart of the shakeup is the change in Oliver's MO from deadly avenger to non-lethal protector (the Arrow, rather than the Hood), ushering in more of Green Arrow's trademark trick arrows (although it seems we may have to wait for Season 3 for a boxing glove) alongside Felicity's tech-cave redesign of the lair (which includes leaving a bunch of his workout kit intact because 'I liked watching you.')

* It works out this well.

A potential new ally in saving the city appears in the shape of idealistic Alderman Sebastian Blood (Kevin Alejandro), but his name is Sebastian Blood, so you can guess how well that works out*.

The first half of the series also introduces another vigilante, the Canary (Caity Lotz). In the comics, of course, Black Canary is Dinah Lance and eventually Dinah Queen after marrying Oliver. Here she is Laurel D Lance's sister Sara, Oliver's fellow survivor, and her trademark 'canary cry' is a sonic device rather than an innate ability.

Also, leather pants instead of fishnets. Good call.

Another change, albeit mostly cosmetic, is that Oliver gets a mask in place of his greasepaint this season, courtesy of guest star Barry Allen (Grant Gustin), the future Flash, who makes a two episode appearance partly to launch the spin-off, partly to provide scientific and medical backup and partly to hold up a big honking sign for Oliver reading 'you and Felicity, man; wave of the future.'

Seriously; this is not just me shipping or anything. It's clear that the showrunners have tagged this as the one that will work. You can see it in the way that they have sidelined Laurel.

I would accept this as an alternative, because they are
adorkable together.

Speaking of sidelining, Thea and Roy are peripherally involved in the initial Canary investigation, but at the half way mark are really only starting to have any major plotlines, with Roy infected by the 'Miracle' drug that Blood is pushing to create an army of supersoldiers under the guidance of Slade Wilson (looking remarkably well aged as compared to the flashbacks.) Even then, Roy's actual addiction plot (widely held up as a shining example of comic book storytelling,) seems to be going to pill-popping, post-traumatic Laurel.

Speaking of post-traumatic incidents, to continue my train of consciousness, the island story picks up somewhat as Sara's return allows the show to finally get going on the shared origin of Arrow, Canary and Wilson/Deathstroke.

There are hints of further backstory involving Canary's training with the League of Shadows and Ra's al Gul, and a reappearance by the not-as-dead-as-advertised Malcolm Merlyn to hint at future shenanigans.