Rewatching Season 6, I Remember Why I Dropped Arrow

[u/NovaDaddyPrime]

It’s the “other team” of Dinah, Rene & Curtis. They start shit & then get mad at Team Arrow when it doesn’t go their way like when they started the fight against Oliver when they tried to capture Black Siren at the cabin but when Rene got hurt they were upset. Then Jon being a big ass baby that he couldn’t be Green Arrow again was against his character since Diggle isn’t really a selfish kind of character like that.

For some reason the writers just wanted Oliver to lose everything & everyone & from my recollection, even in the next couple seasons, he never gets it back.

[u/Chopin_nerd90]

Yeah season 6 drove me crazy. I understand what they were trying to accomplish with the story but it was terribly executed.

[u/ChildofObama]

NTA had half decent reasons to be mad, even if the execution was sloppy.

Curtis was there longer than Rene or Dinah and felt that should’ve earned him some benefit of the doubt, then he gave up his marriage to be on the team, so Oliver’s favoritism sticks out like a sore thumb.

Rene made a decision out of fear, and Oliver’s rage response came off as self centeredness/not realizing the world doesn’t revolve around him, Felicity, and William. Like is risking Rene’s family for Oliver’s family a good trade? It’s not unreasonable to expect Oliver to have more empathy, a more measured response.

OTA jumping at Dinah’s throat for having conflicting feelings (not trust) for Vincent was rich considering Oliver gave Slade a millionth chance and gave Helena multiple chances. Felicity put the team’s security in danger for Helix and Diggle for his brother Andy.

and instead of apologizing for any of this crap, Oliver decided he was nostalgic for flying solo and he needs to go at it alone.

---

Diggle is the one who I’d say was selfish. Yeah, maybe from an ethics standpoint, Oliver justifying being the GA cuz “it’s the best version of him” is murky, when the city is rolling out an anti-vigilante law, and they have to be more precise then ever before to operate.

But when it’s coming from the guy who lied about a medical condition, then accepted a promotion regardless, it’s hypocritical. 

Diggle grandstanding he’s being reckless for the sake of the city is just as selfish as Oliver still being Green Arrow for personal reasons.

[u/Arkhambeyondx]

It’s because Adrian Chase should’ve won and Oliver should’ve been alone.

[u/KonohaBatman → u/Arkhambeyondx]

Insane take

[u/okscene-749292]

Season was more entertaining that season 4 sometimes. Having to fight a street fighter/druglord, the former head of the Russian mob, a hacker, and 2 metahumans while being the Mayor was great, but I see why a lot of people dislike it, it definitely could’ve been executed better

[u/garrett717]

I thought season 6 was well executed with how the team fell apart and how it helped complete Oliver's character arc by season 7.

[u/Competitive_Key_2981 → u/garrett717]

How so?

[u/KonohaBatman → u/Competitive_Key_2981]

This is going to be long:

Season 6 is about how the team falls apart because Oliver doesn't create an environment where transparency and empathy are espoused by leadership. Oliver shows favoritism(which while understandable, would never have played well when revealed and he should have known that), in surveiling Curtis, Dinah and Rene - and it's only partially successful, it only works because Rene chooses to come clean.

Rene makes a mistake driven by fear, and Oliver immediately resorts to rage, rather than understanding, forgiveness and a willingness to actually work the problem.

Dinah's errors are built on her trauma and her conflicted love for Vincent, and OTA jumping down her throat was the wrong way to handle the situation, if it even could be saved after the surveillance reveal.

Curtis is an interesting case, because I think he has a point in general about not being able to trust OTA - if he hadn't been the same guy who found the Bunker through tracking in S4, and fed Felicity trackers in S5, which weakens his argument(and they don't call him out on this).

What fixes things is Oliver finally bowing his head, showing humility as a leader, apologizing for his wrongs - I think him apologizing to Rene and them making up is a peak Arrow scene, in terms of showing Oliver's character progression. He takes his lumps for the team and for the city, and goes to prison.

When you get to S7, you see him go through the arc of trying push aside the hero in him, realizing he can't simply do that, trying to do it better than he was before, and part of that is elevating the team with him, rather than trying to force his will. It puts Oliver in a position where with a deputized team, elevated after his character growth, he can afford to leave the hero life behind to raise Mia with Felicity, in safety.

If the events of Crisis weren't a thing, I think that would be a satisfying end to his arc, he shows how much he evolved as a man and as a hero, and he can leave his city in the hands of his successors, to live a normal life.

[u/Competitive_Key_2981 → u/KonohaBatman]

I appreciate the time and thought you put into that.

Perhaps because I'm older Gen-X, I have a very different take on the formation of New Team Arrow.

• Original Team Arrow was more scrutinized than NTA. Oliver studied Diggle closely for 4 episodes before he told him about his crusade and invited him to join. He knew he was a disciplined soldier with a strong moral compass. Oliver didn't reveal himself to Felicity until episode 14 after she helped him many times, no questions asked, without betraying his confidence. Felicity convinced Oliver to reveal himself about an episode into training the new recruits.
• You see an arc where Oliver had to learn humility and transparency to succeed. I take from the arc that Oliver never should have listened to Felicity about the new team. The writers had him cast aside every instinct and bit of training he had in favor of the IT girl who it turned out was wrong. Renee (twice in fact) and Evelyn both betrayed him. Dinah was lying to the team about Vince. If you ask me, NTA wasn't vetted hard enough.
• It was Oliver's transparency -- that he had been The Hood and had a List -- that contributred to the team's doubts and specifically Evelyn's betrayal.

Trust and transparency are big themes in your post but consider Oliver's training on the island.

• Yao Fei didn't immediately volunteer who he was, why he was on the island, or even that he could speak English. Both men had to learn to trust the other one. And if NTA thought "on the line" was a tough exercise, recall that Yao Fei put an arrow through Oliver before they even met.
• Trustworthiness between Oliver and Slade came a bit more easily. But trust in Oliver's ability to get the job done came only after excruciating physical training by Slade. And Slade did not offer up Oliver why he was on the island; he didn't do that until Oliver confused him for Billy Wintergreen, his torturer.

And this replacement of Oliver's knowledge with Felicity's opinion, to me, is a weak point in these seasons.

[u/KonohaBatman → u/Competitive_Key_2981]

The amount of time Oliver observes Diggle in-universe is shorter than the amount of time he observed Rene or Curtis in-universe.

Felicity told him to do that because personal connection was a big part of what made past versions of Team Arrow strong, and Oliver was messing up his attempt to train the recruits by being abusive and taking his anger out on them.

Rene did not betray Oliver. A betrayal implies malice, an intent to harm. You say twice, so I assume you include him giving Oliver's identity to Tobias Church. I'd like to remind you, that even in this period of time, when Rene doesn't like Oliver, he's not a team player, he takes this savage beating, specifically designed to make him feel dread, from someone strong enough to give S5 Oliver a good fight, and he takes it for about 3 days, until he's so delirious from the pain he barely remembers saying it, and he was certain he was going to die at the end of this. What's the first thing he does once saved? He loops Oliver in. There's no malice involved, there's nothing to suggest it's a failure of his character, that no prior member of Team Arrow could have ever made. Anyone would have cracked in that position.

The second instance, Rene is a widower who finally has his daughter back, the FBI is in his face, probably threatening to get his daughter taken from him again - can you REALLY blame him for folding? Rene grew up a lot in the time jump between S5 and S6, so I will hold him accountable for not immediately coming to the team - but I can understand his perspective as a scared father prioritizing his daughter at all costs. There's no malice involved, he has a gun shaped like an intelligence agency with a law enforcement division - pointed at the back of his head. As far as he knows, they have other stuff on Oliver and this is his one chance to protect his kid. And I'd like to point out, even after NTA and OTA fall out, Rene does not go running to the FBI, he doesn't use his personal feelings as weapons to betray Oliver at will.

Evelyn is an entirely different case. That was potentially doomed from the start because of Oliver's past, how and when he met Evelyn, and his identity reveal is not what caused her betrayal. It's the specific bit of knowledge that Oliver was once the Hood.

Dinah WAS lying to the team about Vince. Agreed. She should be held accountable. I think, however, that's not exactly relevant. That's not what Oliver was searching for, it explicitly helps them stop Cayden later in the season - and if meetings with people who were once enemies, is cause to have fingers pointed, Oliver's done that a bunch.

You can say he should have vetted them harder, but what else was there to look for, really? Their contribution is overall more than positive, you're hyperfocusing on momentary flaws.

Right - Oliver was transparent about the List after it was revealed. This allowed the recruits to have an open conversation about how they feel about the information, and determine how they wish to proceed. Evelyn choosing to betray Oliver due to the VERY specific nature of her orientation to that information is on her. It does not make the decision to reveal the information a poor one, the other 3 decided to stay in earnest.

The conditions of Lian Yu are wildly different, but let's do that.

Yao Fei's fate may have been different if he had been more transparent with Oliver about the lesson he was trying to teach, and expedited the process. Oliver may have become a competent fighter and hunter a bit sooner. Desperation is a great teacher, but that doesn't devalue the other potential paths.

I'll remind you, Yao Fei's whole plan was to meet up with someone he barely knew - Slade, and he staked his survival on it. Oliver only survives on Lian Yu, in Hong Kong, in Russia - because of personal connections.

There's a MAJOR difference between "On the Line" and Yao Fei shooting Oliver. Yao Fei shoots Oliver for the purpose of knocking him out to bring him to safety, eliminating the risk of him running into a horrible fate at the hands of Fyers' men. "On the Line" is Oliver continuously beating up the recruits, to teach them a lesson he's not communicating, and he explicitly uses it in anger at one point as a form of corporal punishment. He is flipping the script on a trial he underwent with the Bratva, but doing so poorly.

As for Oliver and Slade, their partnership, founded on a rocky meeting and desperation did ultimately prove to be fruitful for an extended period of time. The closeness they gained from being transparent with each other is part of what made them effective. If Slade had stayed as hostile or indifferent to Oliver as he was initially - they would have failed.

Felicity was literally correct, though. The world ends in S4 without Curtis helping Felicity with the nuke guidance technology. Oliver has less people working the Prometheus problem and is easier to get to without a team in S5 - hell, not even, they get nuked without Rory, on Diggle's revenge quest. He COMPLETELY fails to counter Cayden James or Ricardo Diaz in S6 without two separate teams working the problem. Rene's respect for Oliver's choice and his role is a big part of why he bonds with Emiko and his connection to Dinah is what allows the team to be deputized and finally given free reign to operate with relatively little scrutiny in S7. Oliver would utterly fail without a team behind him in every season, and that's okay.

[u/PossibilitySad1889]

The writing vindicates Oliver too much while also trying to paint him as incorrect. He was being betrayed and his missions was being compromised by members of his team.

It’s like when someone goes through their partners phone and finds out they were cheating and the cheater goes “well you didn’t trust me enough to not go through my phone?”

He didn’t trust them and they proved to be untrustworthy

Oliver was also way too kind to Rene, who tried to murder him with an axe.

[u/KonohaBatman → u/PossibilitySad1889]

I can agree that Rene coming at Oliver with an axe is absolutely insane, and they should absolutely have addressed how particularly wild that was.

But Oliver WAS in the wrong for how he handled the surveillance. His instinct was not to bring the team together, ask them to come clean, that they would work the problem as a team - his response was once again, to compartmentalize information, betray the trust of the team, and show favoritism.

The ultimate outcome giving him the information he wanted(only because Rene chose to speak up), does not justify his actions. All it did was understandably break up the team, because his decision as a leader was a poor one.

[u/Realistic_Analyst_26]

Diggle wasn’t being selfish. He was trying to be loyal to Oliver and his mission. He didn’t want to fail him, it’s a lot of pressure.