Arrow Season 4 Finale: 12 Big Questions We're Asking After 'Schism'

"Where'd everybody go?"

Arow Oliver hope
The CW

Well, that's that. After a rather hit-and-miss season, Arrow Season 4 is done, and it goes out on a rather flat note.

It's not that the Season 4 finale was bad, more that it just kind of happened, which is more of a problem with the show itself than this particular episode. Although promising something different, which was needed after Season 3, the show never quite lived up to that.

This week brings to a conclusion that season-long battle against Damien Darhk, and thankfully the one constant of this year has been Neal McDonough absolutely nailing the villainous performance, which he gets to do one last time here. The rest of it though is a beat weak, and ridiculous (even by Arrow standards). The threat isn't just Darhk, but 15,000 warheads that have been launched - and apparently it's up to Team Arrow to deal with these?!

While they're being stopped, the rest of the action takes place on the streets, which feels much more at home for an Arrow finale. With one last push for making all the talk and grandstanding about hope - or lack thereof - Oliver's light is able to defeat Darhk's, um, darkness, but even that comes at a cost.

The threat may be over for now, but the season ends with a reversal of last year's finale, and leaves a lot of pieces to pick up in Season 5, with doubts about just how well they can put them back together.

12. Will Arrow Be Affected By The Flash?

Arow Oliver hope
The CW

Ok, this isn't The Flash, so what happened on that finale wouldn't normally have much to do with this one. But in this case it's a rather pertinent issue, because Barry Allen's actions should theoretically have consequences for the entire CW/DC roster.

Although it's not quite clear just how much the timelines of the two shows match up, there's only a couple of weeks difference at most, and Barry's choice is so potentially game-changing that you'd think it would have to impact Arrow and Legends of Tomorrow. But will it?

It's one thing for The Flash to mess around with its own timeline, but a much bigger thing to do so with that of other shows - ones where fans might not even watch The Flash. That's a riskier proposition, but similarly diffiuclt to explain it not happening, so how they'll address that will be interesting to see.

Contributor
Contributor

NCTJ-qualified journalist. Most definitely not a racing driver. Drink too much tea; eat too much peanut butter; watch too much TV. Sadly only the latter paying off so far. A mix of wise-old man in a young man's body with a child-like wonder about him and a great otherworldly sensibility.