Ten years ago, one show unexpectedly changed the trajectory of The CW forever, unleashing a universe of heroes the realms of television had never seen before. Despite this, Arrow was initially a rather low-key, street-level series that was fairly obvious in its juxtaposition of the Green Arrow character with Christopher Nolan's Dark Knight trilogy. Taking from those films' serious, grounded tone, Arrow would succeed most when it remained the same.
The series briefly stumbled big time in its fourth season, but its fifth was easily the best. Introducing a very personal villain for Oliver Queen, and bringing several years worth of stories to a close, Season 5 of Arrow was not only the show's best, but the best in the Arrowverse as a whole. With the shared universe now coming to a close and Arrow having long since gone off the air, here's a look at what made this season such a delight.
Arrow Season 4 Nearly Destroyed the Show
The fourth season of Arrow was inarguably the worst, and for a variety of reasons. For one, it introduced the concept of magic into the Arrowverse via its overarching villain, Damien Darkh. A very loose adaptation of a Teen Titans opponent from the comics, Darkh's occult presence didn't fit at all with the grounded niche that Arrow had carved out for itself. Eventually, Oliver Queen himself had to seek out magic in order to take down the latest threat to Star City, which was a horrendous turn of events that completely desecrated the gritty, realistic scope of the show. It didn't help that, in having such a spooky villain instead of one that Oliver could truly fight, the show's once great fight scenes were rendered completely toothless.
Other areas of the writing weren't any better, namely due to developments with the character Felicity. Audiences had grown tired of the once-beloved hacker, and when she was officially slotted into the role of Oliver's one true love instead of Dinah Laurel Lance, fans were livid. By the time of the season's finale, angered viewers had actually transformed the Arrow Reddit page into one instead based around and praising the far superior Marvel Netflix series Daredevil. With such a huge drop, Arrow had a long way to climb to get back to where it once was... and the results were stunning.
Arrow Season 5 Was the Show's Formula Perfected
The fifth season of the show promptly got rid of the presence of magic, with even the mystical new character Ragman soon being written out. The quality of the fight scene cinematography returned, as did the quality of the writing. All the characters were pushed to their zeniths while being challenged in new ways, with Oliver's role as mayor of Star City echoing a point in history from the Green Arrow comic books. Darkh was replaced by the vastly superior villain Prometheus, who challenged Green Arrow on a physical, mental and moral level. Constantly besting the Star City vigilante while evading him in the most inventive ways, Prometheus would prove to be a villain with incredibly dark ties to the early days of the show.
Speaking of which, this season brought a conclusion to Oliver's flashbacks to his time on the island, ending a plot device that had been with the series since its inception. Numerous stories were paid off, including Ollie's ties to the Russian mafia, the introduction of a new Black Canary and even Oliver's toughest enemy: Slade Wilson. This brought the series full-circle in a Season 5 finale that felt more cinematic than the Arrowverse ever had before. From great action to even better character moments, the depths of the fourth season's awfulness were almost worth it for how much the show rebounded.
Arrow Would Never Be as Good as Season 5
Sadly, this renewal in quality wasn't meant to last. The sixth season of Arrow had huge shoes to fill, and it mostly failed to do so. Outside a new, short story arc with Slade/Deathstroke and the strengthening relationship between Detective Lance and Black Siren, Season 6 mostly felt aimless and boring. It was never nearly as bad as Season 4, but it had a much better predecessor, making its lack of quality fairly noticeable. Season 7 was slightly better, with Season 8 actually being pretty good, but neither of them hit the same thematic heights as the fifth.
The Arrowverse as a whole would follow a similar descent in quality, with some shows dipping straight into the pits of Hell with how bad they became. Arrow would end in early 2020, and with Season 9 of The Flash announced as its last, it seems that the universe it spawned will be meeting a similar fate sometime next year. The hooded hero had his ups and downs, but when it came to Season 5 of his titular show, he certainly didn't fail his or any other city.