Arrow: 6 Things That "Left Behind" Did Right (And 4 It Didn't)

3. Structure

With only a few exceptions, each episode of Arrow alternates between flashbacks to Oliver's time on his (literal or metaphorical) island and action in the present. The Climb took a few liberties, but Oliver's presence in all of the three time frames was enough to hold them together. Oliver's absence in Left Behind posed a significant structural problem. With him dead or at least seriously out of commission for most of the episode, the flashbacks don't really make sense. You may have needed the information imparted in the Hong Kong scenes, but a bigger question arose: who exactly was meant to be flashing back? A similarly sticky wicket is the fuzziness of the present timeline. According to Team Arrow in Starling City, Oliver has been missing for four days before Malcolm Merlyn confirms his death. If the mountain scenes are meant to run concurrently, Oliver would have lain broken and alone in the snow for at least three days. If he wasn't already super dead from the stab and fall, he sure would have been if Maseo had indeed waited that long to retrieve him. On the other hand, if the retrieval has occurred sooner, Left Behind could have spared two seconds to clarify that on screen. Captions aren't exactly big drains on the budget.