I want to start by saying that I loved the first two seasons of Arrow. The characters were awesome, the stories were good and the fights were amazing. Some hits and misses, but overall I loved it.
And then Season 3 happened. It started by shoving the badass heroine Canary into the fridge, followed by a mystery arc on who her killer could be, which, surprise surprise, turned out to be Season 1 Big Bad Malcolm Merlyn, who Ollie puts under his protection for no reason. This leads into an entire season of bad decisions as the heroes make stupid move after stupid move all to protect a mass murdering terrorist. Even in the episode Nanda Parbat, where the situation resolves itself, the heroes still insist on screwing everything up to protect a Complete Monster.
Malcolm Merlyn is a perfect example of how a Villain Sue can drag down an entire show. He's an easily forgiven Creator's Pet and this has resulted in every character in the show becoming an idiot who have devoted themselves to protecting him.
This has turned the entire show into a trainwreck. There is no way the show can recover from the damage that Season 3 has done to it.
Train Wreck
I want to start by saying that I loved the first two seasons of Arrow. The characters were awesome, the stories were good and the fights were amazing. Some hits and misses, but overall I loved it. And then Season 3 happened. It started by shoving the badass heroine Canary into the fridge, followed by a mystery arc on who her killer could be, which, surprise surprise, turned out to be Season 1 Big Bad Malcolm Merlyn, who Ollie puts under his protection for no reason. This leads into an entire season of bad decisions as the heroes make stupid move after stupid move all to protect a mass murdering terrorist. Even in the episode Nanda Parbat, where the situation resolves itself, the heroes still insist on screwing everything up to protect a Complete Monster. Malcolm Merlyn is a perfect example of how a Villain Sue can drag down an entire show. He's an easily forgiven Creator's Pet and this has resulted in every character in the show becoming an idiot who have devoted themselves to protecting him. This has turned the entire show into a trainwreck. There is no way the show can recover from the damage that Season 3 has done to it.