Green Arrow’s family has been expanding, but the weight and responsibility of being the patriarch, the mayor of Star City, and, of course, the masked vigilante with the nifty arrows might break him when Arrow’s sixth season rolls around. With cross-overs to the other DC properties, namely The Flash and Supergirl, the season has its fair share of explosions, drama, and superheroic moments.
While the original season of Arrow set the stage for who Oliver Queen/Green Arrow (Stephen Amell) would become, by the sixth season, the audience is drawn deep into the development of the character first designed in the 1940s, but later built on by Neal Adams, Denis O’Neil, Mike Grell, and others. He’s been partners with John Diggle (David Ramsey), but additions along the way have grown to include Felicity Smoak/Overwatch (Emily Bett Rickards), Thea Queen/Speedy (Willa Holland), Curtis Holt/Mr. Terrific (Echo Kellum), Rene Ramirez/Wild Dog (Rick Gonzalez), and Dinah Drake/Black Canary (Juliana Harkavy).
While all of this is well and good, some simple questions are raised here. How can Oliver be a good dad? Does he have responsibility to stop evil and how will that impact his relationships? Which effort is most important – masked crimefighting, political crimefighting, child raising? How can fatherhood be balanced (even as Cayden James shows an imbalance in fatherhood affected by grief.)
The reality of the situation for Queen this season is that regardless of what his responsibilities are – press conferences, firing arrows, providing advice – he still has to figure out how he’s going to lead… and the decisions are tough ones for superheroes and working parents. While relationships come and go and come and go again, Queen’s maturity increases as he realizes he’s not operating in a vacuum, but he must remain loyal (and responsible) even when he’s on the outs with someone. Sure, Arrow has explosive moments, but the real world day-to-day stuff sets this season apart from shows like it.
Special features on the Warner Bros. home release include all of the cross-over episodes with Supergirl, The Flash, and Legends of Tomorrow uniting The CW and CBS. Features on “The Split of a Man: Deathstroke,” “Inside the Crossover: Crisis on Earth-X,” “Revenge in Ones and Zeroes: The Story of Cayden James,” and the 2017 Comic-Con Panel are also included.
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