Arrow: 10 Ways That Season 3 Went Wrong

Season 3 started out promisingly enough on the villain front. John Barrowman as the twisted Malcolm Merlyn was a highlight of Season 1, and there was no way that Arrow would incorporate a bad guy like Ra’s al Ghul himself if he were not going to be so evil that Slade Wilson would seem positively cute in comparison. Two big bads in one season? It was going to be great.

Unfortunately, instead of embracing the dark side and letting the evil flag fly, Arrow watered down its main villains to the point that Oliver’s self-sabotaging was more generally irksome than their acts of violence. Ra’s scored some nice evil points by skewering first Oliver and then Thea, but he was mostly just a temperamental irritant who liked to have his way. Matt Nable did what he could with the role, but the writing wasn’t there for Ra’s to be properly scary.

For his part, Malcolm’s absurd redemption arc based upon his apparent endless love for the young woman whom he drugged into submission just didn’t work, and the contrivances necessary too justify why he could occupy the same city as any of the good guys without being shot, pummeled, impaled, cyber-destroyed, and/or decapitated managed to hamstring a whole cast of characters at once.