Team GATV Roundtable: Looking Back At Arrow Season 5

What did you think of the season finale?

CRAIG: I loved it. In this day and age of big finales for shows, you need a cliffhanger that will be talked about for the entire summer, as we try to figure out what’s up. Of course, social media, interviews and convention appearances kill a lot of the mystery over the summer, but it was still an explosive ending to a fantastic hour that brought back many of my favorites, the most exciting for me being Slade, of course.

Also, I’m not ashamed to admit I got a bit teary when we saw the flashback of Oliver calling Moira. Great performances by both Stephen Amell and Susanna Thompson.

MATT: There were aspects I liked about it, particularly the culmination of the whole five years. For the most part, I also liked the island going up in the blast. It was a way for them to finally put the island to rest for them. We’ll deal with some aftermath in flashback to open Season 6, but this was a way to truly close this out on the show. Yet, at the same time, I was disappointed. They talked about how this finale was going to be smaller and more personal than previous years. I was prepared for something really heart-rending and gripping. While it certainly had its emotional weight, it felt like it was still a bit too large to me. Sure, we didn’t have yet another major attack on the city, which was a welcome change. And the concept was to bring all of those closest to Oliver to the island to eliminate them all, which is personal and pointed. But it still felt sort of Bond-level in its scale. But the groups were great and I loved Oliver bringing Slade in to help. Their dynamic is still one of the best things about the series.

MELISSA: Mixed like a lot of the season really. It had moments of wonderful character connection, delivered fights I was looking forward to seeing, and had a high stakes resolution (kind of); but the character moments didn’t have enough time to breathe, the fights between Nyssa/Talia and Black Siren/Black Canary were over too fast, the cliffhanger explosion that put everyone at risk was the best way to convince me no one was really at risk and the episode relied too heavily on Oliver’s previously unexplored bond with his son. Baby Sara, erased from the timeline by Barry, had a deeper bond with the audience.

William was too much just an abstract concept, not a three-dimensional character. We in the audience accepted on an intellectual level William was a child and deserving of love and protection, but we didn’t know William anymore than Oliver knew William and so forty minutes of Oliver yelling “My Son!” became repetitive and lacked the impact it could have had.

I think a two hour finale would have worked better, but it was still a good episode and improves on repeated viewings.

STEPHANIE: Overall, the finale was good, not great, but it worked well enough to conclude the stories that it needed to. Literally blowing up the island was a solid and fitting way to close the chapter on this season, and five seasons worth of flashbacks. I liked that the final showdown was just between Oliver and Chase. No armies. No opposing teams racing towards one another (because nothing can beat the Mirakuru fight in the streets). It was cool to see something different, even though the entire team was close by and there was a pricey explosion.

The biggest downside was the Nyssa-Talia fight. I looked forward to that moment since Talia was announced, but it disappointed with its brevity, and we didn’t learn much at all about their history, other than Talia leaving Nyssa behind.