Like pretty much every show, Arrow went through its growing pains in Season 1. Early episodes suffered from some overly cheesy qualities (stiff acting, annoying voice-overs), and the series struggled for a long time to move past its obvious inspirations. Even at its best, Arrow was often a very clear mash-up of the Christopher Nolan Dark Knight trilogy and the Sam Raimi Spider-Man trilogy. The trick has been establishing Oliver Queen as his own hero, not the offspring of Batman and Spider-Man.

Loading

Loading

Loading

Loading

Luckily, that's something the series succeeded in accomplishing with Season 2. Arrow became a better show in many ways this season, but above all, it managed to give Ollie an overarching conflict that deftly carried all 23 episodes and made him his own hero.Right off the bat, "City of Heroes" set the tone and direction for Season 2. We saw a despondent Ollie still crushed by the death of his best friend, Tommy, and having retreated to the island in a self-imposed exile. Though Colin Donnell only briefly reprised his role as Tommy this season, his character was very much a lingering presence driving the actions of Ollie and Laurel throughout the year. And his death formed the crux of Ollie's renewed mission. It was right there in the revised opening sequence - "To honor my friend's memory, I can't be the killer I once was." And that, more than Ollie's battles with Slade Wilson or Sebastian Blood or Isabel Rochev, was the core conflict of the season. It's easy enough to fight criminals by shooting them dead. But could Ollie muster the strength and the courage not to kill, even if it meant putting himself, his family, and his city in greater danger? It was a struggle, but the most satisfying element of the finale was the way Ollie definitively answered that question and established himself as a better class of vigilante.Overall, Season 2 was a good showcase for Stephen Amell's acting talents. Amell has always been at his weakest when he tried to convey Ollie's carefree, playboy facade. There's a methodical, intense aspect to his acting that doesn't really mesh with that aspect of Ollie's personality. Luckily, that wasn't an element that very often came into play in Season 2. Ollie was haunted by demons and shouldering heavy burdens throughout the year. He suffered more often than he succeeded, and Amell conveyed that pain well. Most impressive was the way Amell was so capable at portraying Ollie at different periods in his life. We saw plenty more of Ollie's life on the island in the various flashback scenes. Having already spent a year fighting for his life against men like Edward Fyers and Billy Wintergreen, flashback Ollie was closer to the man he is in the present, but not all the way there. And we even caught glimpses of a pre-island Ollie, most significantly in "Seeing Red." More than the changes in hairstyle or fashion, it was Amell's purposeful shifts in vocal intonation and body language that differentiated the different versions of Ollie.Having established himself as one of the better supporting players in Season 1, it was very gratifying to see Manu Bennett step fully into the spotlight and become the big antagonist of Season 2. That's despite him not even being revealed as the secret mastermind of Brother Blood's uprising until the mid-season finale, "Three Ghosts." But it was crucial that the show spend so much time, both this season and last, in building up the brotherly bond between Ollie and Slade and the island. We needed to feel the pain of seeing them broken apart and Slade become a vengeful villain hellbent on tearing his former friend's life down. And it wasn't until much later still that we saw how that rift occurred and Slade turn his wrath against Ollie. It's a testament to both the writing and Bennett's acting that the character never quite lost his aura of sympathy even as he murdered Ollie's mother and tried to do the same to Felicity. This was a man driven half-mad by the loss of the woman he loved and an injection of a super-steroid. But conversely, I appreciated how the finale took pains to establish that it wasn't just the Mirakuru fueling Slade's anger. Even now, super-strength gone and exiled back to the island, Slade is a clear and present danger to Ollie's world.One of Season 1's more annoying flaws was the way the villains so often seemed underdeveloped and underutilized. Season 2 didn't entirely overcome that problem (William Tockman stood out as especially wasted), but it definitely made significant strides. The show introduced Sebastian Blood and Isabel Rochev as Slade's subordinates, with Blood serving as the most visible villain for much of the season. I really enjoyed Kevin Alejandro's portrayal of Blood (minus the distorted supervillain voice he donned every time he put on his mask). Alejandro's Blood was so disarmingly charming that it was often difficult to reconcile him with the masked man kidnapping drug addicts and turning street thugs into super-soldiers. Ultimately, Blood became the sort of villain who does the wrong things for the right reasons. He had an honest desire to make Starling City a better place. And when it became clear to him that Slade Wilson wouldn't leave a city left for him to rule, Blood did the right thing and aided Team Arrow.Summer Glau's Isabel Rochev wasn't quite as successful. The main problem was the way Rochev dropped out of the show for months at a time before she was finally revealed as a villain. Not terribly memorable as a ruthless executive type, Rochev became more interesting when her allegiances and her motivations for hating the Queen family were made clear. It was interesting to see Isabel rise from the grave and essentially become Deathstroke's daughter, Ravager. Unfortunately, her quick and unceremonious death in the finale seemed like a waste of potential.Most of the increasingly large supporting cast were given their moments to shine in Season 2. I was often disappointed that Diggle wasn't given more to do, but at least he was able to take a starring role in "Suicide Squad." Diggle's backseat status was mainly the result of Sara Lance stepping into the limelight early on and eventually becoming the fourth member of Ollie's vigilante crew. The Arrow had his Canary finally. Sara's own struggles with the desire for lethal force and reuniting with her family often made for good drama. But among Team Arrow, it was often Felicity Smoak who often had the best material. It took me a while to warm to Felicity in Season 1. Emily Bett Rickards' "spacey tech whiz" routine was a little too precious. But Rickards' had much better material to work with this year, whether it was her unrequited love for Ollie, her burgeoning relationship with Barry Allen, or her desire to pull her weight alongside her more physically capable allies. The final three episodes all featured some standout moments for Felicity as she established herself as a force to be reckoned with.Elsewhere, Roy Harper was often a focus as he transitioned from troubled street punk to superhero sidekick. Roy's temporary super-strength powers were a welcome story swerve and a fitting physical manifestation of his inner rage. His character arc received a satisfying conclusion in the finale when he proved himself worthy and received his own red domino mask, but lost Thea as a result. Hopefully we'll see much more of Colton Hyanes in Season 3, and learn more about what makes Roy tick beyond his obsessive love for Thea.As for the various women in Ollie's life, Felicity and Sara aside, Season 2 was a little more uneven. Moira definitely had an interesting ride. She started out Season 2 fighting for her life while on trial for her role in the Undertaking. Then, in an unlikely turn of events, she was spurred to run for mayor. And finally, her life did end when she became a pawn in Slade's cruel game. It was a terrific finish for Moira, proving once and for all that, whatever wrongs she committed, she was only ever trying to ensure her children's survival. Thea was more up and down throughout the season. She was often underutilized, but received a boost late in the season when she learned the truth about her parentage. Laurel's character arc was all over the map, meanwhile. She had her own crucible this season, spiraling into into drug and alcohol addiction and losing her job before hitting bottom, rebounding, and playing her part in saving Starling City. The problem was that Katie Cassidy's portrayal of Laurel sometimes made her unlikable and even obnoxious at the wrong times. She didn't always convey Laurel's suffering well, but by the end of the season I could see her eventually proving worthy of becoming a costumed heroine in her own right, should the show move in that direction.The challenge with Season 2 wasn't just in overcoming the recurring flaws of the first, but also in scaling back the emphasis on realism and establishing this version of the DC Universe as a place where superhuman characters exist. It was a tall order, but I was pleased with how this paradigm shift was handled. The writers never dove headlong into full DC insanity. There were no aliens or gods or flying men. The Mirakuru drug served as a plausible, pseudo-scientific way of introducing super-strength and allowing Slade to transform into Deathstroke. And even when it came time to introduce the Flash midway through the season, Barry Allen never felt too out of place alongside the more grounded characters. That said, it should be interesting to see how well Arrow and The Flash co-exist going forward, given the scale seen in the recent Flash teaser trailer.Season 2 really opened the floodgates as far as drawing in characters and elements from other DC properties. Barry Allen's debut was the most high-profile, but we also saw plenty more of Amanda Waller and A.R.G.U.S. "Suicide Squad" could easily serve as a proof-of-concept for a Suicide Squad spinoff series. In the flashbacks, Professor Ivo became a recurring villain, along with a very different take on Amazo. And in a welcome twist, it turned out that even the Batman franchise is fair game with this show. Early on we learned of Sara Lance and Malcolm Merlyn's connection to the League of Assassins. Nyssa al Ghul appeared in a couple of episodes, and we know her father is out there in the world, leading his shadowy organization in the hidden city of Nanda Parbat. Even Harley Quinn had a brief cameo. We may never see Batman himself appear in this show, but it's good to see that the Batman franchise as a whole isn't off limits like it was with Smallville.And beyond the introduction of all these new elements, the scope of Arrow really opened up in Season 2. The action was bigger and better choreographed. The scale of the conflicts was bigger. The producers simply seemed to have more money to throw around. And whether that was actually the case or just the result of experience and planning, the end result was the same. Arrow became a bigger, more cinematic TV series this year.There was only a small handful of episodes this entire season that were less than great. In fact, there were only three episodes the entire season that I rated less than an 8. And looking back over those reviews, I wasn't surprised to see that all three hinged around antagonists that had also fared poorly in Season 1. In "Identity," the debut of Michael Jai White's Bronze Tiger was drowned out by the return of the comically bad China White and one of Laurel's weaker storylines of the season. Luckily, Bronze Tiger had other opportunities to stand out. "State v. Queen" suffered from the return of the hammy, mustache-twirling Count Vertigo. And "Birds of Prey" proved to be the weak point of the season thanks to the return of Jessica De Gouw as the Huntress. There's no depth or sympathy left to that character, which is going to severely work against any plans the producers might have of establishing the titular Birds of Prey team.There was also a slight sense of disappointment with the finale, as it didn't quit live up to the standard of the Season 1 finale. Make no mistake - there was some great material between Ollie, Slade, and Felicity in that episode. But there was also a sense of anticlimax, as it became clear that the worst was behind Ollie. Season 1 culminated with the dramatic death of Tommy Merlyn, and it left viewers to stew on that moment for five months. Season 2 had a similarly traumatic death when Slade murdered Moira, but that came several episodes before the finale. With all of the standout moments on this show, Arrow may find itself a victim of its own success as the writers have to constantly strive to outdo themselves each year.