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A Recap of Season Three of Arrow

Posted at 11:06 AM, Oct 07, 2015
and last updated 2015-10-07 11:06:02-04

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Ever heard the idiom “No love lost?” Well, Season 3 had a lot of love being lost and a lot of battles being lost, too.

In preparation of the Season 4 premiere tonight, we’re taking a look back at the third season of the show that, arguably, started the whole DC Comics TV Universe, Arrow.

Let’s start from the very beginning.

The reign and terror of Deathstroke had finally ended and things were looking up for Oliver after his epic battle with his former partner and friend. He was at the peak of his Arrow reign, Roy had taken up the mantle of being his sidekick known as Arsenal, Diggle and Felicity were sticking around for another run and the team couldn’t have looked any stronger. But, of course, things can’t always stay too good for too long. Especially when you’re a hero.

Sara, also known as Black Canary, made her return to Starling City to check on our hooded hero and during one of her nights on the hunt, she was assassinated with arrows to the chest and met her untimely death after falling off the roof of the building she was on.

This caused a huge stir in the team and families all around Starling, especially Laurel’s. It fell upon Laurel to tell her father, Captain Lance, that his other daughter had just died. Laurel couldn’t just bring herself to do so. Not yet, anyway.

Oliver, on top of having to go look for his little sister, Thea, who’s recently run away after the events that took place during the fight with Deathstroke and her relationship with Roy, has discovered via old nemesis Malcolm Merlyn that the people responsible for Sara’s murder was the clan known as the League of Assassins ran by a man who’s powers and dominance have no end, Ra’s al Ghul.

We’ve heard that name before, however. Remember Oliver’s run-ins with Ra’s al Ghul’s daughter in the second season, Nyssa al Ghul? If you recall, Nyssa and Sara shared a secret romantic relationship together. Well, you can only imagine how heartbroken she was when she found out that Sara had been killed. As a matter of fact, Nyssa went out of her way to return to Starling City to search for the killer herself.

Moving forward, Oliver discovers that Malcolm Merlyn, in an attempt to save his own hide from being executed by Ra’s al Ghul, reveals that it was he who killed Sara not by his own hands, but his daughter’s, Thea. He mind controls Thea using a drug and forces her to kill Sara.

This prompts Oliver to go to Nanda Parbat, the home of the League of Assassins, and rid Merlyn of his order of execution by challenging the Demon’s Head, Ra’s al Ghul, to combat. This doesn’t go too well.

Oliver tries to keep up with the Demon’s Head, but to no avail. In the end, it was Oliver that was met with a blade through the chest and sent falling down the snowy mountainside, presuming to be dead.

During Oliver’s absence, Starling City was being ran down by a tyrant named Danny “Brick” Brickwell and it’s up to the rest of the team to take down the new crime lord.

Meanwhile, a new billionaire by the name of Ray Palmer has made a new home in Starling City and is looking to shake things up by becoming a new hero by using new technology to build an exo-skeleton that can fly, attack and have other functions, too. He later dubs himself as the A.T.O.M.

During a city war against Brick, Oliver is revived by a former friend of his and sets his way back to Starling City. He returns to his beloved city just in time and puts an end to the reign of Brick and his crime mob. He promises to never leave his city again and sets himself back in motion against injustice.

After going back to Nanda Parbat to exact his revenge against Ra’s al Ghul, Oliver and Diggle get captured but eventually get released by the Demon’s Head, but under one condition: That Oliver would become next in line to take over Ra’s al Ghul’s role as the leader of the League of Assassins and become the Demon’s Head. Oliver reluctantly agrees in order to keep his friends and family away from harm.

Now under the new name Al Sah-Him, Oliver sticks by Ra’s al Ghul’s side, learning all his secrets, his techniques and his methods. It builds up to Ra’s tells Al Sah-Him about his ultimate plan to eradicate and “save” Starling City by committing mass homicide, Oliver having to “turn against” his friends in battle and even an arranged marriage between Al Sah-Him and Nyssa al Ghul.

The time comes for Al Sah-Him to lead the eradication of Starling City and it was the perfect opportunity for Oliver to turn against his new master in Ra’s al Ghul and defeat him. Mid-way through the invasion, Oliver reveals he is still the Arrow that we all know and love and begins to fight the Demon’s Head in a battle to the death.

This time, it was Oliver who came out on top, defeating Ra’s al Ghul and killing him in the process. The invasion ended and Starling City was saved once again by the Arrow.

Now that Oliver has left Starling City with Felicity in order to live a “happy” life, does that mean we’ve seen the last of the Arrow? Or, will this bring forth a new opportunity to birth a new hero? One with a little more “Green” to his name.

The wait is over, Arrow fans! TONIGHT is the premiere of the Season 4 and the debut of the GREEN Arrow! It all begins tonight at 8 p.m. on SFL-TV, the CW!