Team GATV Roundtable: Looking Forward To Season 4

Does the show need more romance, or less romance?

LAUREL: The show needs better romance. It shouldn’t be the focus of everything, but it makes sense that people who are attracted to one another would act on it after being in close proximity every night for a few years. Arrow should never make romance its focus, but personal relationships humanize these hardcore, dark characters.

STEPHANIE: Arrow could survive with less romance, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that it has too much right now. The show started out as a story about Oliver’s crusade, and as the characters developed and more were introduced, romance naturally blossomed and became more prevalent. My issue with the romance aspect is when the characters are forced to choose between being a hero and being in a relationship and how doing both is “dangerous” and “distracting.” That trope has been done so many times that it’s now the easy way out and I’ve stopped believing in its authenticity. Diggle and Lyla can have it all, why can’t everyone else?

CRAIG: Less, please. I know this is The CW – but I don’t want the romance to be the only reason to watch. How about some more friendship and teamwork?

MATT: I don’t know that they need more or less, but they should find a proper balance. More important, they need to mature the romance. One of the toughest things to watch was these two adults acting like high school kids.  I get that the viewing audience of the show and the network plays into some of that, but these two should be playing their age.  We’ve got Thea if we want to tackle more of the younger, volatile, life-and-death theatrics of romance. We’ve got Diggle and Lyla to cover the marriage and familial end of the spectrum. Oliver and Felicity should be along that spectrum between those two extremes. If things are going to be good, let them be good with the normal intrusions of day-to-day life. If things are going to be troubled, make them realistic conflicts and not just dumb understandings and forced stilted communication.

DEREK: I’m totally down with romance, and even romantic angst, as long as it plays into what’s happening. If we can get more romance along the lines of Roy and Thea or Diggle and Lyla, then please do. I mentioned in the Olicity section in part one that I was unhappy that their romance ultimately went the “nothing matters as long as we’re in love” route. I can deal with that on shows where it works, like the more soapy and youthful romance-driven Smallville. Hell, I could even see that kind of view of love working with the lighter tone of The Flash. It’s bothersome on the down-to-earth Arrow, though, because the show once excelled at subverting comic book tropes without deconstructing them and treating its characters with maturity. Every other successful relationship the show’s had, I’d argue, pointedly avoided that route. You can pull both drama and joy out of a relationship without making it something unnaturally epic and overbearing. If it plays heavily into the plot, use it to explore the ins and outs of that relationship, not just “They’re sad when they’re not together and happy when they are” and leave it at that. Love is way messier and more complex than that, without the superhero angle. And if Oliver and Felicity are meant to continue, then season 4 really needs to explore how these two vastly different (and one very broken) individuals actually make it in a real, legitimate relationship, because it’s going to take a lot of work.