Authors Saving Throw / Arrow

• Some comic fans didn't like the choice to give Roy powers via Mirakuru, so the revelation of a cure existing and Roy being the first to get it probably pleases them.
• Attempted by casting Peter Stormare as Werner Zytle, the new Count Vertigo, following Seth Gabel's Count Vertigo being killed off during Season Two amid numerous fan complaints that Gabel's performance in the role was too hammy to take seriously as a threat. If anything, though, Stormare's performance is even more over the top.
• Laurel's demotion from love interest to merely a supporting character in Season Two, and giving her a drug addiction storyline to have her confront her character flaws, was probably in response to the largely negative response people had to her character and her void of chemistry with Oliver.
• Felicity is finally set to get some backstory in Season Three, which will likely add more depth to her character and is a welcomed move, given how so far she's the least-developed character in the show despite her prominence and popularity.
• Zig-zagged with the fan outcry over Laurel becoming the new Black Canary. Initially the beginning Season Three make it clear that she doesn't deserve the title yet, and has to put a lot of hard work into being worthy of it. Subverted by the rest of the season, when she only takes a few episodes of after-work boxing classes to hit the streets in Oliver's absence and is soon leaping off buildings with ease, and even in her training with Nyssa is beaten by street thugs in one scene and taking on the League of Assassins in another. She also gets her name and costume a lot faster than both Roy and Thea.
• Zig-zagged back and forth with the inclusion of superpowers. When the show began, one issue people had was feeling like a grounded, realistic approach didn't take full advantage to the imagination and creativity of a comic-book series. When The Flash had the Mass Super-Empowering Event of the S.T.A.R. Labs explosion, people hoped that maybe the events of The Flash would be a good entrance point for metahumans to start appearing on Arrow as well. However, Word of God stated that now that they have The Flash to do the superpowered stuff, it was even less likely that superheroes would appear on Arrow. However, when news of the crossover began, the powers that be started saying that superpowers might start showing up after all.
• After many complaints that the show took too many villains from Batman's rogues gallery, the fact that they introduced Count Vertigo #2, Komodo, Cupid, and Brick (all exclusive Green Arrow villains) within a few episodes of each other is probably no coincidence.
• Many people were getting sick of waiting for Thea to find out Oliver's secret, so "Canaries" not only has him reveal it to her, but also has her avoid typical reactions by hugging him and thanking him for saving her, then tops it off by having her chew out Malcolm for deliberately trying to push them apart. The episode ends with the two Queens returning to Lian Yu, ready to train into being a team.
• "The Offer" seems to have been specifically set up as a response to the problems people had with Season 3. Laurel keeping Sara's death secret from her father has just as much fallout as you'd expect when the truth comes out, everyone's on Laurel's case that she's not as good a Canary as her sister, Malcolm's Karma Houdini status is further obliterated as Thea gives him an even more devastating "The Reason You Suck" Speech that leads to him offering to let her kill him, Ra's al Ghul moves out of Designated Villain territory by turning his back on Nyssa and framing the Arrow for murder, and most of all everyone in Team Arrow not only talks honestly about their issues, but they listen to what each of them is saying and grow past the Wangst that had been bogging everyone down.
• Some fans are less than pleased about the show's tone, saying that it's more akin to Batman in terms of angst and grimness. The end of Season 3 has Oliver driving away from Starling City with Felicity, proclaiming that he's actually happy. Combined with Word of God hints that Oliver will return as the Green Arrow and that the series will be a little more upbeat probably indicate a move toward the more humorous, friendly Green Arrow from the comics. This, like many above, is subverted, with Season 4 still maintaining a bleak outlook, has one of the darkest moments in the show, and the only real change being Oliver/Green Arrow mentioning "the light of day" a lot, while the bad guy now has magic powers with a large evil organisation.
• Legends of Tomorrow has addressed many Arrow fan rage points just in the trailer. Sara is shown to be alive, and just in case someone thought it wasn't the same Sara who died in season three, the trailer shows her death and coming to life in what looks like the Lazarus Pit. Ray's suit also allows him to shrink now.
• After the backlash for how underwhelming and generic Ra's al Ghul was as a Big Bad, Damien Darhk was handled as a much more proactive antagonist who quickly posed to be one of the greatest threats and ultimate evils Team Arrow has ever faced. There's also the fact his goals and motivations are more true to comic Ra's al Ghul than the Arrow's version of Ra's al Ghul himself.
• Season 4 was announced to have added Mr. Terrific to the cast, along with clearly stating he would be the show's first homosexual male character. This goes a long way to appeasing any still lingering resentment about Sara's death.
• A minor one: Throughout season 3, it was a running joke/pet peeve that Flashback!Oliver kept his hair long despite having plenty of opportunities to get a haircut. "The Candidate"'s flashbacks end with Oliver cutting his hair down to its modern-day length.
• "Restoration" includes a slightly shoehorned-in line explaining why Nyssa never brought up putting Sara in the Lazarus Pit in the previous season, followed by the pit being destroyed to remove any further issues like this.
• Season 4 has been incredibly quick in putting any secrets out in the open, the reveal of Sara being revived only being hidden for 3 episodes and Lance working for Darhk only being a secret for 4. Being that this comes after Arrow "Locked Out of the Loop: The Show" season 3, this looks to be the producers saying "sorry" for taking Poor Communication Kills to its logical extreme.
• The scene from "Beyond Redemption" where Oliver finds out Quentin was working Damien Darkh before confronting him in a What the Hell, Hero? moment, and calls out all of Quentin his immoral acts so far. This seems to be in response to the hatred accumulating for Quentin after his vendetta against the Arrow in season 3, with the scene being exceptionally well-received.
• The aptly titled "Sins of the Father" repeatedly has numerous characters lay out Malcolm's crimes that it seemed the show was expecting us to just overlook for the past couple seasons, and while Oliver responds to them with hope that he can still be redeemed for Thea's sake, he ends the episode with such a deep betrayal that this will undoubtedly go out the window once Oliver learns about it.
• Subverted with how the grave plotline is resolved. Though Laurel was once a character many wanted to be killed off, over the last half-a-season she'd risen in popularity thanks to becoming a more supportive big sister-type to the team. As a result of the hate for her dying out combined with another character becoming The Scrappy of the show (*cough*Felicity*cough*), when it was ultimately revealed that Laurel is one who gets killed, the outcry was comparable to her sister's fridging or the death of Beth in The Walking Dead in terms of backlash.
  • Double subverted with the reveal that Laurel will be brought back and be "alive and well" for Season 5, after several assertions that the grave plot would stick. And then triple subverted when it was revealed that not only was it Laurel still dead and she was really her Earth-2 doppleganger Black Siren (although many fans saw it coming), but she quickly dashes any hopes of a Heel–Face Turn, and a replacement Black Canary who's a complete stranger is introduced instead. Season 6 quadruple subverts it by allowing her to have a Heel–Face Turn after all.
• After many fans had trouble getting past the silliness of Oliver's new costume in Season 4 lacking sleeves, they were promptly put back for Season 5. One episode even has Oliver pointing out how Awesome, but Impractical this was.
• With Season 4, a lot of fans took issue with how Oliver suffered The Worf Effect against multiple villains while requiring more help from his allies to save him. In the Season 5 premier, "Legacy," Oliver Queen takes on Anarky, the one Season 4 villain he had the most trouble fighting before, and finally defeats him decisively in a one-on-one duel, quite possibly reversing the Badass Decay he suffered last season. Later, his new team tries to rebel against his orders and he puts them all down in about five seconds, leaving them shocked that their previous Training from Hell was actually him going easy on them.
• Season 5 has gone to great lengths to go back to the routes of Season 1, which has made lots of veteran Arrow fans very happy. In particular, the fight scenes are more polished and of Season 1 quality, where Oliver isn't as worfed and reliant on his team.
• The announcement of Black Siren / Laurel Lance-2 being a main cast member of season six has gone over quite well among many fans, after many outcries on the treatment towards Katie Cassidy's character.
• In contrast to the villain plot of Season 4, Arrow probably wants to go back to being more about saving the city than saving the world, unlike the other Arrowverse shows.
• In the episode "Underneath," Felicity finally admits to Oliver that she had been a hypocrite the entire time, especially with how she had treated him over the fact that he didn't tell her about his illegitimate son William and finally admits she had no right to judge him for the difficult decisions he's had to make over the years. At this point, her confession does come off as a bit of an apology letter from the writers to the fans for the way she's behaved from the third to fourth seasons, which turned her from a popular Ensemble Dark Horse to The Scrappy of the series. While she went back to Scrappy territory over the infamous double wedding in Season 6 (which remains a Never Live It Down moment for her), Season 7 finally saw her become more tolerable again due to being more supportive of Oliver and developing a genuine friendship with Breakout Character Black Siren.
• The overall portrayal of Slade Wilson / Deathstroke started off strong, but gradually diminished as the character wrapped up Season Two and especially a lackluster return appearance in Season Three. In part due to his reliance on Mirakuru making him The Juggernaut (he was too powerful with Mirakuru and too easy to defeat when Brought Down to Normal) but also his singular focus on getting revenge on Oliver got old. Manu Bennett himself was quite vocal about how he became less intimidating and one note. His return in the final episode of Season Five outright says that it took time for the Mirakuru to burn out of his system and bring him back to his right mind. He remembers everything, but is sane again. He holds up his promise to help Oliver, still with a touch of uncertain loyalty, while also getting a number of badass rescues and action scenes.
• After major fan complaints in Season 6 about reducing original cast members' screentime in favor of new characters that many people have little to no investment on, original cast member Colton Haynes (Roy Harper) is brought back for Season 7.
• After three seasons worth of Seasonal Rot and questionable writing decisions, the higher-ups finally decided to fire both Marc Guggenheim and Wendy Mericle as showrunners after Season 6 (or rather, firing Mericle and promoting Guggenheim to a position where he can do no more damage).
• Season 7 sees the crew pulling some serious Loophole Abuse to get around some of the restrictions Warner Brothers put them under: they bring back the Suicide Squad simply by giving it a different name, and include Slade's son even if they still can't use the man himself.
• Ever since her introduction immediately after the original Laurel Lance's death in Season 4, Earth-2 Laurel has been the most popular choice to eventually take over as Black Canary. After three seasons of waiting and two seasons of a Replacement Scrappy to endure, she finally did towards the end of Season 7.
• Quentin's death in season 6 prove to be an unpopular choice, partly because he had long since become a fan favorite Team Dad and partly because his death seemed cruel and unnecessary. Those angered will be excited to see him brought back to life in the new Earth-Prime created by Oliver.