Arrow: 10 Ways That Season 3 Went Wrong

Neither Season 1 nor Season 2 of Arrow was perfect. There are even some areas in which Season 3 is better. The problem that has made it so difficult to look back at this past year of Arrow with much enthusiasm is that it was just so incredibly depressing.

For the longest time, literally nothing good happened. It was all yelling and crying and brooding. Every time that it seemed like Oliver had hit rock bottom and his life could get no worse, the show would toss him a shovel to dig himself deeper and make his entire existence all the more miserable. Past a certain point, it didn’t even feel constructive to critique Oliver’s more boneheaded decisions. By the end, the guy deserved credit just for getting up in the morning.

Luckily, the third season ended on a happy note for the hero with Oliver driving off into the sunset with his lady love and a proclamation of his own contentment on his lips. If Arrow hadn’t managed to pull itself out of its perpetual cycle of misery by the end of the finale, it might have found itself without much of an audience for its fourth season.