'Arrow' Season Premiere Recap: Whose Grave Is That?
Warning: Spoilers ahead for this week’s Season 4 premiere of Arrow.
A lot has changed since Arrow’s last season finale. After Oliver and Felicity drove off into the sunset, everything began to fall apart. While Team Arrow is still together — and more cohesive than ever — they can’t cope with the new danger that threatens their city.
Oliver and Felicity’s happy life in Ivy Town is ended by the arrival of Thea and Laurel, who ask for their help with Damien Darhk, who has been killing Starling — oops! — Star City’s leadership with impunity. Team Arrow, now led by Diggle, had been holding their own until Darhk and his Ghosts came to town. Once the team unites, they are able to stop Darhk’s plot to blow up a new high-speed rail train and a station full of passengers, while, in the flashback, Amanda Waller once again recruits Oliver against his will, this time sending him back to Lian Yu.
That leaves us with a lot of questions.
Speedy Going Nuts
Producers promised that there would be repercussions for bringing Thea back from the dead. Diggle seems to think he’s no worse than Oliver once was, but how long before she gets much worse?
The New Gear
There was something of a furor online when they released pictures of Diggle’s new helmet. Now that you’ve seen it in action, are you still thinking “Blackneto,” or do you think Digg makes it his own?
Damien Darhk
This season will be heavy on the magic — so much so that fellow DC (anti-?)hero John Constantine will be making an appearance. It’s basically the opposite of how the show started; the intent was to create a real, grounded superhero, and now magicians are flinging Ollie around like rag dolls? Do you like the new layer of mysticism, or do you prefer an Arrow without all the comic book gimmickry?
The Ring
How do you explain the subtle nuances of a relationship in flux when you’re busy fighting ghosts and a supremely powerful magician bent on leveling your city? While Olicity is still very much a thing, things in Star City aren’t the same as they were in Ivy Town. Executive producer Marc Guggenheim says they were looking for a way to “dramatize where their relationship was,” and hit upon the idea of the proposal and hiding the ring in the bowl. Will they get married, or are they destined to always have something keeping them apart?
The Graveyard
What with Thea coming back and — eventually — Sara Lance, you’d think that anybody could come back from the dead with a quick dip in the magic hot tub, but the producers say no, and that the grave Oliver is at belongs to someone important. “We want to bring stakes back to the show, so we’ll be finding a way to deal with the Lazarus Pit,” says producer Wendy Mericle, and that whoever’s death it is will be permanent. So who’s going to die?
Bad Lance
There’s no doubt that Captain Lance got involved with Darhk with the best of intentions, but now that there’s blood on his hands, will he be able to get out without doing even more damage?
Lian Yu
Wait, wasn’t the flashback supposed to be in Coast City so we could possibly meet up with a future Green Lantern? How did we end up back on The Island?
Line of the Night
No questions here. “Felicity Smoak, you have failed this omelette.”
Arrow airs Wednesdays at 8 p.m. on The CW.
