“Six months ago, the Arrow died. But what he stood for didn’t. It lived on in the heroes that took up his mantle. People who believe that this city should never descend into hopelessness. Who believe, although life is full of darkness, that darkness can be defeated by light. And tonight, I’m declaring my intention to stand with them. To fight for this city. To be the symbol of hope that the Arrow never was. I am…the Green Arrow!”
As Oliver took a new oath in his return to, now, Star City, it became clear that he had full intention to changing the man he once was, while still maintaining his heroic spirit.
For all you DC Comics fans, this is the Green Arrow you’ve been wanting to see!
Season 4 started with Team Arrow members Diggle, Black Canary (Laurel) and Speedy (Thea) still active in Star City. Fighting crime together with some new equipment. It seems Diggle took some inspiration from seeing everyone else wearing a facial protector and decided to wear a helmet instead of a mask.
As for Thea, well, Speedy, she’s donned Roy’s old costume as the Red Arrow/Arsenal and has modified it to fit her stature and to make her more flexible. And Laurel is still under the Black Canary moniker, taking up her late-sister’s mantle.
Back at SCPD, the city’s leadership, composed of Captain Lance and other city council members, were meeting to talk about a new group of criminals on the rise known as the “Ghosts.” During their discussion, Damien Darhk shows up to the meeting completely unannounced and claims to have full control over the new group of criminals. He warns the leadership members to stay away from his “plan” and to let the city perish.
The leadership, of course, refuses to accept his supposed offer. A bold move, but not a smart one.
Darhk commands his new criminal gang to systematically take out each and every one of the members of the leadership. He manages to have every member assassinated except for Captain Lance.
Now living in Ivy Town, Oliver and Felicity are living a life of domestication and freedom. Well, sort of.
It doesn’t take Thea and Laurel long to reach out to the two of them to ask for their help in order to stop the Ghosts. Diggle disapproves of this notion, being that, just last season, Oliver had taken Diggle’s wife captive and fought him, too. Diggle’s still a little hurt from that, for good reason.
The two return to Star City and Oliver finds out that Felicity hasn’t entirely left “the life” and has been low-key helping out the gang with anything technological they need. Oliver does get upset…for a minute. Only because he understands where Felicity is coming from and accepts their destiny as heroes.
Then, the team goes off to try and track down the Ghosts. They’re successful at doing so and discover that Darhk is using some form of mystical powers with energy manipulation and kills one of his own recruits. His plan is to take out a large portion of Star City’s population by bombing the new train station.
Back at the hideout, Felicity reveals to Oliver Cisco’s latest invention for the team, a new suit for Oliver! With more armor and freedom to move around, there’s no telling what else Cisco has installed into the new suit!
Diggle, still struggling with his own trust in Oliver, talks to his wife about his life situation. She openly tells him that she’s forgiven Oliver for all that happened, knowing that he only did what he had to do, and that it’s time that Diggle did the same, too.
The team bands together once again and thwarts Darhk’s plan to blow up the train station. Oliver confronts him in one of the trains and attempts to fight Darhk on the spot, but is ultimately defeated by the superpowered villain by getting a taste of Darhk’s superpowers. So much for a new suit, right?
After this fight, Oliver hacks into the emergency broadcast system and opens up a stream that is played throughout the city with Darhk watching, too. He vows to become a beacon of hope to the people and official renames himself the Green Arrow.
Then, the real kicker comes in. It is revealed that Captain Lance has been working with Damien Darhk for quite some time now. Why, you ask? We don’t know!
Hopefully, all the answers will come to us as the season progresses along.
Also, there’s an ending scene that jumps ahead six months into the future and shows Oliver and Barry at a graveyard in front of a tombstone to someone undisclosed. Who’s buried underneath that tombstone?! Let the speculation begin!
Arrow is ALL-NEW tomorrow night at 8 p.m. on SFL-TV, the CW!
