ARROW Producers Know You Hate The Flashbacks, But They're Going Nowhere In Season 5

ARROW Producers Know You Hate The Flashbacks, But They're Going Nowhere In Season 5

Arrow's flashbacks stopped being good during season three and have grown steadily worse. The show's producers are actually aware that they're not working, but that doesn't mean they'll be scrapped!

By JoshWilding - Apr 17, 2016 08:04 PM EST
Filed Under: Arrow
Source: TV Line
Arrow's flashbacks started going downhill during the time we spent in Hong Kong last year, but Oliver Queen's return to Lian Yu has led to some of the show's worst moments during season four. Be honest, can you even remember what the hell is happening in them week to week? At this stage, it feels like the team working on The CW series are stretching them out for the sake of it, so surely it's a plot device which can now be dropped? Well, TV Line reports that Arrow's producers are aware of the lack of interest in them, and Marc Guggenheim had this to say about why they're not working right now. 

"Part of the appeal of the flashbacks – certainly in the first two years, but I think the first three years – is seeing what a big difference it is between Oliver Queen in the present day and Oliver Queen five years ago," he explained. "The problem is that we are telling a five-year story in the flashbacks of Oliver becoming the guy you met in the pilot. So the deeper you get into the flashbacks, the closer he becomes to being that guy, and, thus, you lose that element of the flashbacks that was so interesting, which is how different he was…. That’s something we have struggled with this year."

Unfortunately, it sounds like Arrow plans to stick with these for the foreseeable future as Wendy Mericle added that, "The way we write the story is still very much married to that backstory, and trying to change it up at this point would feel weird." Thankfully, it sounds like things will improve dramatically during season five as they've already established the end of Oliver's five year journey to become the Green Arrow, and it sounds like we'll be spending the year in Russia. "I don’t want to tip too much, but it’s a very good possibility that we’ll finally find out how Oliver got that Bratva tattoo and how he learned to speak Russian." Sounds...thrilling. They can't get much worse, right?
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DarkArrow19
DarkArrow19 - 4/17/2016, 8:13 PM
What about felicity?!
RandalCabbage
RandalCabbage - 4/17/2016, 8:27 PM
@DarkArrow19 - 6 feet under if they know who what's good for ratings.
DarkArrow19
DarkArrow19 - 4/17/2016, 8:31 PM
@RandalCabbage - if only if only. Kills me how they get rid of Laurel AND Roy! Like seriously they don't think. But we all know that.
RandalCabbage
RandalCabbage - 4/17/2016, 8:39 PM
@DarkArrow19 - ya buddy
Yaf
Yaf - 4/17/2016, 8:43 PM
@RandalCabbage - Tell that to Zod's snapped neck.
Mrcool210
Mrcool210 - 4/17/2016, 8:13 PM
We know yo hate something, but we'll keep it there anyway. Why?

Kadara
Kadara - 4/17/2016, 8:16 PM
@Mrcool210 - LMAO😂
DarkArrow19
DarkArrow19 - 4/17/2016, 8:13 PM
Like the flashbacks can stay if she goes
TheRockmore
TheRockmore - 4/17/2016, 8:15 PM
Used to be a big supporter of the show (S1 and S2, and Laurel/Thea/Roy in S3/S4), but it's a joke now.

Mericle claims that, ""Part of the appeal of the flashbacks – certainly in the first two years, but I think the first three years – is seeing what a big difference it is between Oliver Queen in the present day and Oliver Queen five years ago," and Guggenheim said the same LAST season; that they'd improve the S4 flashbacks because no one liked the S3 ones...

They started the season not even knowing who was in the grave and not only chose the wrong character to kill, but made it an uninteresting storyline.

Point of this comment being: In Season 3 they said the SAME THING of the Season 4 flashbacks.
RandalCabbage
RandalCabbage - 4/17/2016, 8:28 PM
@TheArrowverse - ya ya felicty-verse.
story up bruh.
Yaf
Yaf - 4/17/2016, 8:55 PM
@TheArrowverse - I thought people really enjoyed Season 3's flashbacks, mostly cause of Maseo and Tatsu though. Either way, Season 3 kinda went to ehh after the Brickwell arc.
WinterOstritch
WinterOstritch - 4/17/2016, 9:00 PM
@Yaf - At first, maybe, but mannnn, The Flashbacks just got bad. The reason why they worked so well in the first 2 seasons was that there was an interesting story to tell that chronicled the island, as well as tie in with modern day both plot wise and thematically.

Starting with season 3, you got these weird flashbacks that were added in randomly in terms of theme or mood. One moment Felicity and Oliver are porking in Ra's Al Ghul's bed, the next its Oliver killing half a dozen guards by gun fire. Season 4 has been the worst, as the Flashbacks don't even tie in with modern day except for the totem. The rest is garbage.
Yaf
Yaf - 4/17/2016, 9:14 PM
@WinterOstritch - Season 2 I would say the Flashbacks worked to an amazing degree. That fight between Green Arrow and Deathstroke? Damn, they were put in amazingly there. The choreography, the tonal shift just made that fight scene quite incredible and unique. One of the best telivison fight scenes for sure.
TheRockmore
TheRockmore - 4/17/2016, 11:15 PM
@RandalCabbage - Story up? The the MAJORITY of fans don't like your precious poorly written Felicity, sorry bud.

Stop being a little bitch because people don't share your opinion "bruh"
RandalCabbage
RandalCabbage - 4/17/2016, 11:22 PM
@TheArrowverse - dafaq are you smoking bud?
Kadara
Kadara - 4/17/2016, 8:15 PM
First woohoo!! Lol but seriously, how much more can they drag the stupid flashbacks, they interrupt the story every time and offer no resolution!
Scorpo
Scorpo - 4/17/2016, 8:15 PM
UGHHHHH
GET RID OF THIS SHOW
REPLACE IT WITH MORE SHOWS LIKE LEGENDS OF TOMORROW
OR BRING SUPERGIRL TO CW FOR SEASON 2
UGHHHHH
TheDarkPassenger
TheDarkPassenger - 4/17/2016, 8:21 PM
Maybe they could use that time devoted to flashbacks to add in more Felicity bullshit.

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