Much has been said about The Laurel Problem on Arrow through the show’s two-plus seasons; since the pilot, she’s been a mess of melodramatic, one-noted (and mostly unnecessary) story lines – until this season. One of season three’s most important secondary narratives is her from Laurel, the whiny prosecutor to The (New) Black Canary – a necessary redemptive arc for the character, both for Laurel’s on-screen relationships, and that with the audience.
However, lost in the midst of Sara’s murder, Barry’s return, the League of Assassins, and whatever the heck is going on in Hong Kong, Arrow‘s failed to deliver on its most promising story of season three: Oliver Queen assuming the role of Slade Wilson, becoming mentor to a tormented boy just like Slade did back on the island. For the first time since him and Thea broke up, it appeared that Arrow had found a direction for its floundering, well-groomed hothead – however, as season three’s become larger and larger in scope, Roy’s character development has all but disappeared, which in turn affects the season as a whole, delivering this important story as an empty component of Oliver’s journey for inner peace.
Look at how quickly Arsenal’s seemingly mastered an “arsenal” of weapons; there’s been almost nothing on his training of any kind, save for a lot of unexplained, fancy parkour and a few scenes with Oliver yelling at Roy for doing it wrong (or a fight begins, and Roy gets knocked out immediately… that’s happened numerous times already). Even the aftereffects of Mirakuru were short-lasted: after struggling with it for half a season, he’s rid of his inner demons in the course of an episode, a convenient bit of Oliver mind magic in “Guilty”, an hour that constructs a murder mystery around an obvious red herring (it’s really his best color).
None of it adds up to anything meaningful: and now, with Thea dating some long-haired loser she hired to DJ at her club, Roy’s importance to the show’s overall story is dwindling with each passing hour. He’s got a cool costume, and clearly doesn’t know how to use it: and Arrow‘s only briefly paused to suggest Oliver might be a bad teacher, something one thought would be addressed in this week’s “The Brave and the Bold”, but sadly wasn’t. Instead, Roy’s just become the cardboard sidekick, someone who uses a very good stunt man to make his character interesting – and everyone knows rule one of superhero shows is making your characters interesting when the mask is off, something Arrow is failing to do.
Am I suggesting Roy needs to go the Tommy Merlyn route? Not yet; but if the show’s going to make Arsenal a meaningful partner to The Arrow, they need to stop treating the character like an action figure who gets touted out for action scenes, and left to wallow in a series of cyclical story lines: save for where he lives now (which I honestly don’t know; back in the Glades? Sleeping on a couch in the cave?), Roy hasn’t changed much at all since his first appearance, except for the fancier red hood he dons atop his frosted tips. And for a character who showed such promise initially to be a mirror to Arrow’s own development as hero (and human being), the lack of direction they’re showing for Roy right now is one of the most disappointing elements in the season’s first batch of episodes.
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Actually, what you hit upon with the “Roy Problem” is a Major Problem with Arrow as a TV show–the writers keep introducing characters, then forgetting about them. Besides Roy, there’s was The Huntress, Isabel (the criminally under-used Summer Glau), Ray Palmer, Sin, and definitely Sara Lance–who should still be playing the Canary. Remember: Felicity was suppose to be a minor character in a few episodes, but was “saved” by over-whelming fan support. In fact, the fans forced the writers to create a life for a new character that they hadn’t intended to develop. Which leads to another point…
My solution to the Roy and Arrow problem is for the writers to forget about the comics and go ahead and create new characters; or take comic book characters in new directions rather than following the comics like an Outline. Arrow is at it’s best with new characters: Sara, Felicity, Diggle. And, conversely, the show is not so good when they go for the Fanboy “wow” factor: Gee whiz, that’s Arsenal…Speedy…the Atom.
Plus, at some point the Arrow Writers need to come to grips with the fact that they don’t know how to write for female characters. Moira’s journey was far from over, but the writers killed her off; and the same can be said about Sara/Canary, and Isabel. But, the Arrow writers can only see the comic book roadmap for their stories…which, frankly, are far less interesting than when they create new ones.
Bottom line: in order for Roy to “live” the writers need to go off book, and start creating a life for him.
I find it’s easier just to imagine Roy smiling and waving in the background “I’m just happy to be on the team!”
I too was really looking forward to mirroring Oliver’s past with Roy’s present but then the show would be a double training show. Watch Oliver train 5 years ago while also watching him train Roy now! It was sort of necessary to skip over all the training.
The show has a massive problem with follow-through on many of it’s plots and characters, it loves to set up these awesome things but then gets caught setting something else up so they bungle the original idea, Capt. Lance still doesn’t know Sara is dead!!!! It makes no sense!