What Arrow can learn from Agents of SHIELD

If you’d asked me a few years ago - indeed, if you’d asked many fans of comic book television - whether I preferred Arrow or Agents of SHIELD, I would have chosen Arrow. While Agents of SHIELD showed promise, it was Arrow that delivered on that promise; I often thought that SHIELD could learn a thing or two from Arrow, in terms not just of being a comic book adaptation, but also in terms of simply being a good drama.

Quite unexpectedly, however, the tables have turned. Personally speaking, I’m consistently impressed by Agents of SHIELD, and sadly frequently let down by Arrow. I, of course, do not necessarily represent the views of every fan - plenty of people still love Arrow, after all. But to my mind, at least, Arrow could learn a thing or two from Agents of SHIELD - hence a series of comparative posts, in light of the most recent season of each show, outlining just what Arrow might be able to do differently…

Part 4 - Villains and Season Finales

And now, the final part of this quartet.

The question of what makes a good villain is a difficult one to answer, really. There’s lots of things you can point to, and they don’t always match up with each other - some villains have a nuanced and sympathetic motive, whereas others are simply an unrelenting force of nature focused only on one goal. Sometimes they’ll have a personal connection to our hero; at other times, it’s simply a matter of conflicting objectives.

One thing that’s always important is a talented actor to take on the role, of course. Thankfully, both Arrow and Agents of SHIELD had just that - Neal McDonough and Brett Dalton are extremely talented performers. I do want to draw particular attention to Dalton, though, because I was quite surprised at his efforts this year - his new role as HIVE gave him the opportunity to demonstrate far more range than Ward ever did, and we were treated to an absolutely astonishing performance. Ultimately, Dalton’s performance as HIVE was far more impressive than McDonough’s as Darhk ever was.

That’s down in part to the level of material given to each, of course. Where Dalton was given a part that required a very precise and measured performance, yet at the same allowing him various opportunities to demonstrate rage, affection, and even serenity, the same can’t be said of McDonough. As a result of Darhk’s fairly limited depth (just why did he want to destroy the world again?) it left McDonough in a position where he was essentially just chewing the scenery all the time - and, in fairness, he did it with much gusto and was clearly having a great time doing it, but that doesn’t mean the villain wasn’t still a little lacking.

What’s interesting, though, is that Agents of SHIELD did quite a lot of work to develop HIVE through focusing on the familial relations of it’s prior hosts, particularly the Malicks - and Arrow had similar opportunities available to them, given that they also gave Damien Darhk a family. It’s something I expected them to focus on quite a lot actually, building in some parallels to Oliver’s own family, perhaps, but ultimately none of that came to pass. Much like with the rest of Arrow this season, all of those potentially interesting character details were just ignored, in favour of ultimately flat, contrived and nonsensical “drama”. We ended the season expected to care about the relationship between Darhk and his daughter, for example - but it’s very difficult to do that when she’s had all of five lines across the entire season. (I counted.)

Another similar, yet linked, issue was that of how easily defeated each villain was.

Darhk was introduced in the first episode of Arrow Season 4, and engaged with our heroes in various little battles at various points throughout the season. It was intended, I believe, to set this up as an integral conflict to the season - an ongoing fight, culminating in one grand finale. In practice, though, this had the effect of making Darhk the season’s most reliably defeated villain! It’s hard to take him wholly seriously when we’ve seen Arrow beat him with relative ease week on week. The opposite was true on Agents of SHIELD; we saw the team fighting HIVE regularly, but they were for the most part locked in a stalemate. For every piece of ground won, they also lost something; one particularly impressive moment, to my mind, was the surprise death of Lash, which completely changed the dynamic of the fight while also pulling the floor right out from underneath the audience.

Ultimately, what Arrow needs to learn in the case of villains is to use them sparingly, develop them well, and ensure they remain an effective presence throughout.

That concludes this series of articles, which has hoped to provide a few pointers on how Arrow can perhaps improve next year. With the fifth season now only a few months away, here’s hoping that this time around, it can be something else.

Something better.

Related:

What Arrow can learn from Agents of SHIELD: Part One - Character Deaths

Arrow - The Disturbing Trend of Fridging Female Characters

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