Arrow Season 5: 8 Ups And 2 Downs From 'Legacy'

6. The Return Of 'The Book'

Arrow Ups Downs
The CW

When Arrow debuted, so much of the entire first season was dedicated to Oliver hunting down the names in his father’s book. After all, they had failed his city, and Ollie was the one to make them pay for their sins.

Since then, though, ‘the book’ has barely been mentioned. With Arrow’s flashbacks this season heading to where it all began, it was good to see Oliver’s prized possession revisited.

As Arrow started with Oliver Queen having been away from Star(ling) City for 5 years (that comes with being presumed dead!), the flashbacks were introduced as a way to explain just what happened to Ollie during this period. By the time that Season 5 is all said and done, the flashbacks will have caught up with Season 1’s ‘present’, and so the return of Robert Queen’s book is a nice way to make the show feel as if it’s heading to where we picked things up with the present day Ollie in the series’ debut season.

Senior Writer
Senior Writer

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 dayjob, 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, Jamie Hayer, 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.