10 Great TV Cliffhangers (With Awful Pay-Offs)
4. Arrow - "Lian Yu"
Arrow has had many ups and downs over its eight-season run. One of the highest highs came with the excellent Season Five finale. Adrian Chase and Oliver's conflict reaches its boiling point in the best way imaginable. The Emerald Archer is forced to take his entire crew (including past enemies) to Lian Yu, the godforsaken island he escaped from five years prior, to face Chase and save his son William.
In the end, Chase beats Oliver by shooting himself. Committing suicide caused Lian Yu to blow up while Oliver's friends (and William's mother) were still on the island. The episode ends with Oliver and his son watching in horror as the fate of many remained up in the air. For an entire summer, people speculated who would survive the carnage.
When all was said and done, the explosion didn't amount to anything substantial. Every main character on the show seemed to be wearing plot armor thicker than that of Jon Snow after he got murdered. The only impactful death was William's mother dying, and that was only to make sure the show could start a new storyline with Green Arrow being a full-time father. Overall, it was just really dissapointing.