Arrow Season 7: 4 Ups & 2 Downs From ‘Star City 2040’

Downs...

2. Rene's Character Journey

It goes without saying that the most shocking character development in all of the flash-forwards belonged Rene Ramirez. By 2040, the former Wild Dog had ascended through the ranks of Star City to become Mayor of The Glades.

While his sudden change of heart was problematic at best (given that he was the one who always championed the vigilante life), you could at least attempt to see where he was coming from, due to the fact that his new position allowed him to finally rebuild the one place he always held close to his heart: The Glades. The same, however, could not be said for his arc this week.

Begging his daughter to stop fighting crime and let the agenda against Galaxy go, he refused to believe that the company he was working with had faked Felicity's death and was secretly planning to level the city and pin it on her (sure Rene, your hero friends are wrong). In the end, he discovered that they were right and even teamed up with his former allies to stop the destruction.

It makes sense that the showrunners wanted one of the characters to be drastically different following the time-jump, but this ended up coming off as contrived. The endgame was predictable from the start but, it would have been worth it if it was actually believable. Being a former superhero, Rene would have sensed that something was off about Galaxy (especially after his recent meeting with Kevin Dale), so his whole stance on the matter was off from the get-go and portrayed him as a lot more naive than he should have been.