Arrow Season 4: 7 Ups And 4 Downs Of 'Monument Point'

2. Boring Flashbacks

Arrow Monument Point
The CW

The biggest problem of Season 4 so far has been the Lian Yu flashbacks of the season. For whatever reason, the flashbacks have just felt boring for the most part and do nothing but cause an episode to drag.

Sure, we were brilliantly introduced to John Constantine during these flashbacks, but they’ve largely just been a hindrance on the show with each passing week. In fact, the episodes that haven’t had the island flashbacks have often flowed far better than the majority of the ones that took us back to Lian Yu.

It’s not that Lian Yu itself is boring, with some of Arrow’s finest moments taking place there, particularly when Slade Wilson was thrown into the equation, but the whole storyline with Baron Reiter and the magical totem feels irrelevant, despite clearly tying in to the modern-day goings-on with Damien Darhk and his powers.

It looks as if the way that Reiter was eventually stopped will tie in conveniently with how to finally take down Darhk as the season comes to a close, but that still doesn’t make the flashbacks here any more engaging.

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Once described as the Swiss Army Knife of WhatCulture, Andrew can usually be found writing, editing, or presenting on a wide range of topics. As a lifelong wrestling fan, horror obsessive, and comic book nerd, he's been covering those topics professionally as far back as 2010. In addition to his current WhatCulture role of Senior Content Producer, Andrew previously spent nearly a decade as Online Editor and Lead Writer for the world's longest-running genre publication, Starburst Magazine, and his work has also been featured on BBC, TechRadar, Tom's Guide, WhatToWatch, Sportkskeeda, and various other outlets, in addition to being a Rotten Tomatoes-approved film critic. Between his main day job, his role as the lead panel host of Wales Comic Con, and his gig as a pre-match host for Wrexham AFC games, Andrew has also carried out a hugely varied amount of interviews, from the likes of Robert Englund, Kane Hodder, Adrienne Barbeau, Rob Zombie, Katharine Isabelle, Leigh Whannell, Bruce Campbell, and Tony Todd, to Kevin Smith, Ron Perlman, Elijah Wood, Giancarlo Esposito, Simon Pegg, Charlie Cox, the Russo Brothers, and Brian Blessed, to Kevin Conroy, Paul Dini, Tara Strong, Will Friedle, Burt Ward, Andrea Romano, Frank Miller, and Rob Liefeld, to Bret Hart, Sting, Mick Foley, Ricky Starks/Saints, Jamie Hayter, Britt Baker, Eric Bischoff, and William Regal, to Mickey Thomas, Joey Jones, Phil Parkinson, Brian Flynn, Denis Smith, Gary Bennett, Karl Connolly, and Bryan Robson - and that's just the tip of an ever-expanding iceberg. Where his beloved Wrexham AFC is concerned, Andrew is co-host of the Fearless in Devotion podcast, which won the Club Podcast of the Year gong at the 2024 FSA Awards.