Team GATV Roundtable: Looking Back At The First Half Of Arrow Season 4

What storyline is working best for you?

MATT: I’d say both of Oliver’s stories are working best for me. The present day, with Oliver finding aspects of himself outside of Green Arrow to contribute to his city, is engaging. And the past storyline on Lian Yu seems both far more informative and far more involving than the flashbacks last year.

DEREK: This “war in the light,” mostly tied into Oliver running for mayor, has worked wonders to make this season feel different from the last three. There are still plenty of vigilante fights in warehouses in the middle of the night, but the focus on Oliver’s mayoral campaign and setting major events in public in the daylight makes things feel bigger. Star City is more a character than Starling ever was. Since both the good and bad guys have to play coy in front of people, Oliver and Dahrk have to throw out lots of subtext and knowing glances rather than always fighting or yelling their plans at each other. If either makes a move, innocent people get hurt — which seemed to be the whole impetus of “Dark Waters” — and that’s added a constant throughline of suspense in nearly every scene, even when it’s not an action sequence. Anytime we do have the heroes getting down and dirty, they have to do it on small, infiltrator scales — Quentin’s double agent role, especially. It’s allowed all characters to play unique and imperative roles in the grand narrative.

CRAIG: William secret thing aside, I like that Oliver is taking personal responsibility. He loves his city, just like his father at least tried to. He’s trying to go about being the Green Arrow the right way, and running for Mayor – while seeming a bit out of left field – is a way Oliver can do that, out in the open, helping the city and making it become what it needs to be. If anyone is failing this city, it certainly won’t be Oliver, and I like that. It also shows a maturity that’s growing with the character, who, before the island, was the Starling City equivalent of a Kardashian.

STEPHANIE: The existence of H.I.V.E. has been working the best for me this year. It reminds me of Slade’s army of Mirakuru soldiers without being an imitation of them. They’re both well trained, highly organized, and difficult enemies to stop, but there’s an additional air of mystery and uncertainty surrounding H.I.V.E. that makes them unique. In contrast to the League of Assassins last year, the threat that H.I.V.E. poses feels more present and immediate, which lends itself to a better story.