Team GATV Roundtable: The Arrow Season 3 Road So Far

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What do you think of where Oliver is at this point in the series?

CRAIG: Assuming he’s still alive… he’s still making some selfish choices, and by being “selfless,” he’s being more selfish. He needs to tell Thea what’s going on with him, and be honest with it. If he likes and wants Felicity, he should just go for it. Yeah, yeah, there’s the whole “people close to him die” thing… but even not as a love interest, Felicity is in danger by being close to The Arrow, so why not enjoy life? I know there wouldn’t be drama in that, though.

Arrow as a show is about the development of Oliver Queen as a character, so I get it. But, we’ve seen the selfless hero thing before on shows like Smallville, and since Arrow moves the story and the characters ahead so much more swiftly, we don’t need the delays.

STEPHANIE: Oliver is still making decisions that maybe aren’t the smartest, and he’s still not listening to Diggle as if he were an equal, especially when it comes to Oliver’s relationship with Felicity. We’ll have to see how his rise from the dead plays out, but if Oliver went into a fight with Ra’s Al Ghul without a contingency plan, then he has a lot to learn about facing off with bad guys.

MATT: In the series…? We had an Oliver who needed to learn that there was more than revenge, and to not just find his humanity again but find a humble humanity he hadn’t known before. That shifted to the idea of not being a killer and becoming a hero. Now that he’s a hero, it’s about whether he can exist as both the hero and the man. It’s a legitimate question and it follows the through-arc appropriately. That sad, I haven’t felt like the theme has been that strong on the season yet. Sara’s death puts that question in perspective, but it also overshadowed it. He’s hoping that death and more than eventual rebirth takes charge of that theme.

DEREK: I’m excited to see where he’s going post-death, but I don’t know if his character story thus far has worked as effectively as last season. It’s a natural progression, for sure, and points like “The Brave and the Bold” really sold Oliver grappling with his humanity and what it means to be human. Last season took a straightforward super hero concept — the no kill rule — then deconstructed and reconstructed it to make a larger statement on what a hero is. Season three is doing something similar, using the oft-tread “hero’s refusal to form a romantic relationship out of fear and duty” to expound on how that affects Oliver Queen, the man. But “The Calm” was shaky in introducing the concept, and I’m not sure it’s really gained its footing since then. It’s not bad for Oliver to waffle back and forth between when to put his friends in danger or not, or how to deal with Felicity. But his goals are way more vague and less consistent, and it’s made it harder to track what we’re supposed to be seeing in his development.

Come back in a few days as we look to the future of Season 3! In the meantime, come talk all things Arrow on our forum!