MYTHICITY: *fair*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *adventure*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *psychological, sociological*
It's been some time since I visited the ARROW series, possibly because I still remember how terrible the later seasons became. However, on re-watching Season Two, I think this season, more than Season One, earned the show the reputation on which those terrible late seasons coasted.
Admittedly one thing never changed about ARROW in any season: the melodramatic characterization was always cranked up to eleven. One big plotline continued from One was that Oliver Queen's mother Moira was tried for her complicity in Malcolm Merlyn's scheme to destroy an entire neighborhood. This caused erratic mood swings in both her adult children, Oliver and Thea, who varied between adoring and despising Moira, though never both in one mood at the same time. Naturally, whereas such a major trial would have taken a year or more in the real world, in the Arrow-verse it's wrapped in a few weeks, Moira is exonerated and even runs for mayor of Starling City.
A somewhat more consequential subplot involves the revelation that Thea unlike Oliver was not the natural daughter of Moira's husband but rather was conceived between Moira and Malcolm Merlyn. In the latter half of the season, Malcolm returns and successfully claims Thea as her true father, even though her initial reaction is to shoot him. The writers also devote a fair amount of time into developing a romantic arc between Oliver and his slightly wacky assistant Felicity. But though the soap operatics are generally entertaining in the first few seasons, I'd have to say that they never got quite as good as producer Berlanti's debut superhero series, SMALLVILLE. That show also may have had more low points in its first few seasons, but I tend to prefer a show that has a greater variety of the high and low, as opposed to playing things straight down the middle.
Another positive development is that Season Two wraps up many, though maybe not all, of the "island-adventure" plotlines. These flashbacks consumed much time in Season One, showing how Oliver Queen (Stephen Amell) got stuck on a not-so-deserted island, dealing with madmen in search of a scientific weapon and other castaways seeking to avoid being victimized. However, as a result of those struggles, Oliver incurs the enmity of former ally Slade Wilson (Manu Bennett), who trained the playboy in archery. Wilson, aka "Deathstroke," returns to Starling City with vengeance in mind, monomaniacally fixated on destroying everything his former pupil loves. That includes the new addition to the cast, Sara Lance (Caity Lotz), who survived her apparent death at sea to become one of the League of Assassins. She incidentally becomes the program's incarnation of the comics' Black Canary, albeit called only "the Canary," and the actress is decent in the role, in marked contrast to her later acting-history.
The various shout-outs to DC characters proves at least as attractive as the well-done action-scenes. There might not be total agreement between the original characters and ARROW's reworked versions of Professor Ivo, Cyrus Gold, William Tockman and Sebastian Blood. But the reworked characters here are generally efficient at putting across good superhero melodrama. (An additional note is that Barry Allen, prior to undergoing his flashy transformation in his own show, appears in a couple of Season Two episodes, as do two of the support-characters from the proposed program.) But Manu Bennett's formidable performance as Deathstroke is Season Two's greatest asset, as is his plan to use the aforementioned super-weapon-- a drug that can make humans into super-soldiers, roughly on the Captain America level-- to make vicious killers into his shock troops against Starling City. Given TV's budgetary limits, the showrunners made this scenario far more bracing than many higher-budgeted feature films.
My memory is that Season Three still remains decent entertainment, particularly when the Flash starts interacting with the Arrow-verse. I hope to verify that within at least the next year.
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