Arrow: 10 Ways That Season 3 Went Wrong

After eight months, twenty-three episodes, two big bads, and one defrocked superhero, the third season of The CW's Arrow has come to a close. 

With the second season ending on a series of cliffhangers that left fans salivating over the summer hiatus, expectations were high for the Season 3 premiere back in October. When last seen, Oliver was flying high after defeating his annual supervillain and celebrating by sending some seriously swoony heart-eyes at Felicity, Sara went back to the League of Assassins, Thea absconded with Malcolm Merlyn, Diggle learned that he would be expecting a Digglet, and Flashback Ollie moved from Lian Yu to Hong Kong. Overall, everything was fairly awesome. 

Still, the Season 2 finale left a lot of ground for the first few episodes of Season 3 to cover, and fans eagerly awaited resolutions. 

Well, the third season opened by either rushing the characters past certain resolutions, or skipping over them entirely. Oliver and Felicity flirted, went on a date, almost died, and broke up. Diggle's daughter was born and Diggle was benched. Thea was absent. Sara died. Arrow hit the ground running, and everything was... dreary. 

The next twenty-two episodes would see Arrow hit some pretty high highs and some pretty low lows. While the eventual happy ending was more than welcome, there were some problems that are difficult to overlook. So, here is a breakdown of ten ways that Arrow went wrong in its third season. 

From the very beginning, Arrow was sold as one man's journey from a vengeful serial killing vigilante into a hero. Oliver Queen returned from five years of hell with a list of names and a bow as his only companions. The scope of his mission expanded early on as Oliver was forced to bring others into his secret lair and his confidence. Former soldier John Diggle became his brother-in-arms to watch his back, and computer genius Felicity Smoak brought a high tech flair to his distinctly low-tech operation. Together, they became Team Arrow.

But the show was still called Arrow, and Oliver was still the protagonist. For two seasons, all of the other characters and plots were appropriately peripheral to his journey.

In Season 3, it all changed. The show was still called Arrow, but Oliver was marginalized more and more each week as other characters were shoved into the spotlight. He was even run through with a sword and kicked off of a mountain to clear the way. Unfortunately, the attempt to use his “death” as a springboard for secondary origin stories just created a vacuum in which it became clear just how much Stephen Amell did as lead actor to elevate the material. It's no coincidence that the quality picked up after he returned to prominence toward the end of the season.