‘Arrow’ season 5 wishlist: A return to basics, relevant flashbacks, and Deathstroke

The “Arrow” season finale has come to a close, but that doesn’t mean that the story is by any means over! Season 5 is premiering this fall, and as someone who has invested a lot of time in this franchise, we do want to see it back, bigger and better than ever before. It has some problems right now, including uneven pacing and some frustrating supporting characters, but the great thing about ongoing TV is that there’s always some room to turn things around.

Below, we’ve got our personal wishlist of what could be changed for the show, and how it could benefit it moving into the future.

Deathstroke – Allow us to beat the drum for a moment regarding more Slade Wilson. It’s been more than a year since Manu Bennett graced the show, and while we realize that he is rather busy, it feels like the time is right to bring one of the show’s best villains back. What made him great is that he was formidable, but had a personal vendetta against Oliver Queen in a way the neither Ra’s al Ghul or Damien Darhk possessed. We were never really able to get inside their heads, and that caused them to be villains we’re not sure anyone is going to be clamoring to have back.

Back to basics in general – No more superpowers for a while. Meanwhile, no more magic. Just focus on what made “Arrow” great at first: Some great, gritty crime drama between characters who are somewhat grounded and intelligent. There’s no need for extra frills, or a wide array of different characters. Focus more on the core cast, and maybe give the original Team Arrow some time once more before you bring in people like Thea or Curtis once more.

A funnier Felicity – What made her originally so great was that she was the comic relief on a show with very little of it, and we feel like this is a role that suits her best. Let Oliver do more of the brooding, and give us back that element of the show we’ve sorely missed. This in turn could make the Oliver / Felicity relationship more subtle. We root for them, but always felt better when the romance was an accessory to the butt-kicking and the crime-solving. Get us back to that place, and don’t make the relationship so dramatic if it happens again.

Fix the flashbacks – If you have them, make them at least remotely relevant to the present-day story beyond just a theme. Give us multiple characters in same timelines, or tie it in to a larger mythology. Otherwise, why still have them at all? They are distraction that takes away time that could be used to develop some other characters. For “Arrow” to take some more risks in their storytelling engine would certainly be a smart move, just as long as they keep it around the core group.

As a quick bonus, we’re going to start including some short videos with some of these articles detailing more of our thoughts. You can view the latest one below!

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