If there’s one complaint I’ve seen leveled at Arrow more consistently than any other, it’s that the titular archer isn’t the wise-cracking dork we know and love from the comic books. Actor Stephen Amell has been portraying Oliver Queen and his emerald alter-ego for five seasons now, and he sees an opening to correct that.
“I’ve said that it’s very, very important that if Oliver doesn’t take away lessons from Season 5 and doesn’t keep doing things that have led to this catastrophic event, the character stops being interesting to me,” Amell said at Heroes and Villains Fan Fest this weekend. “So I hope that part of that, in Season 6 and if we have seasons beyond that, I hope that part of that is we get back to a lot of the tenets that people recognize from the comics. And that, of course, is humor and a socially conscious, slightly liberal superhero.”
Now is the right time for this
Arrow is in a perfect spot for a tonal shift. The show has been on a very particular arc since the first season. While it hasn’t always been a great show, it’s stuck to that idea and finished it this spring with a bang. A hard shift in that arc would’ve felt like a huge disconnect from everything that had come before it. But with the end of season 5, we find Ollie and the Green Arrow both in very different places. Oliver has been forced to question why he does what he does, and whether or not he’s doing it for the right reasons. He’s been pushed to the brink. The season finale left us in a spot where we don’t know whether or not some long-time characters are alive.
One possible, even likely outcome is that Oliver will find himself taking care of a young son who knows both of his identities. Amell even commented earlier this year that Oliver is “more equipped” to be a father than he thinks he is, and said that the theme of this new season will be “family.”
Wherever season 6 starts off, it’s going to be different.
I hope the writers working on Arrow are listening to Amell, because he could very well become the Arrowverse’s bright spot again after The Flash has dug itself into such a deep hole. Arrow season 6 premieres in its new time slot on Thursday, October 12, at 9 p.m. EST.