In the first four seasons of Arrow, Oliver Queen managed to defeat some pretty dangerous and terrible villains…but the question of whether his hooded vigilante activity actually made Star City better or safer has been an open one.
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As characters have joked, it seems like there’s always some big terrorist attack in May, and street crime might be down, but gang violence and incidences of metahuman or otherwise enhanced crime seems to have spiked.
There’s also the fact that Green Arrow himself is acting outside the law and there’s an argument to be made — it seems Prometheus is making it this season — that the city is inherently worse off just for having Team Arrow in it.
As mayor of the city, Oliver Queen has so far been pretty notoriously terrible at his job, too: preoccupied with his night job, he has consistently delegated important tasks to unelected family members (like Thea) and substance-abusing family friends with questionable qualifications (deputy mayor Quentin Lance).
“One of the things we went into season five with the mindset of is Oliver’s mayor, so without it turning into The West Wing, how are we going to find ways to have Oliver be active as mayor, and to everyone’s surprise, be a good mayor, end up being a good mayor,” explained executive producer Marc Guggenheim during a screening of tonight’s episode, “Spectre of the Gun.” “And you’ll start to see, actually – and this is true in next week’s episode, in episode 14 – Thea’s going to make a good case to Oliver, of all people, for all the things he’s accomplished as mayor, and you start to see like, oh wait, in the first 13 episodes, he actually kind of did some stuff. And he’s not done yet. Obviously, the season’s not done yet. But we definitely went into the season with the goal of showing that Oliver is actually much better at this job than you might expect.”
You can check out the official synopsis for the episode below:
WILD DOG’S HISTORY IS REVEALED — A traumatic attack on City Hall triggers painful memories for Rene (Rick Gonzalez) about his family. Flashbacks reveal how Rene went from simple family man to a hero named Wild Dog.
Meanwhile, Oliver (Stephen Amell) must deal with the perpetrator behind the attack and realizes the best way to do so is as Mayor Queen instead of the Green Arrow. Tensions run high in the Arrow bunker.
Kristin Windell directed the episode written by Marc Guggenheim.
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Arrow airs Wednesday nights at 8 p.m. ET/PT on The CW. This week’s episode, “Spectre of the Gun,” debuts on February 15.
