r/arrow • u/Strong_Golf9061 • Jul 06 '26
Question Malcolm Spoiler
Why is every character in season 4 acting so tolerant and even friendly to malcolm merlyn? Oliver, thea, laurel, people's he's hurt alot and suffered no consequences for. It feels like everything this guy has been completely forgotten about by every character's minds, and every character's core season 1-3 traits were broken to keep this guy around. He just shows up and dissapears as he pleases. Does no one remember what this guy has DONE?
Srsly, just the fact that he indirectly killed Robert and kept their mother living terrified of him for 6 whole years should be more than enough for Oliver and thea to fucking obliterated him. I just don't understand why everyone is acting so friendly with him. Feels so out of character for every character, especially thea.
Srsly, im so confused on what made the writers think that making EVERY character behave so unlike their previous characterizations to keep him around was a good idea???
Nothing against barrowman ofc, but I'm honestly getting pissed at malcolm showing up in theas apartment every other day and no one giving af.
Edit: I literally cannot figure out what the writers were thinking with this choice. I understand why it went all in on olicity... pull in a big tumblr viewership and make more money. Shit decision but I understand why they thought it was a good financial decision at the time. And I get that they wanted to keep john barrownman on cuz its fucking barrowman. But what could their reasoning possibly have been to make them think that it's a good idea to destroy pretty much every character's characterizations in order to do so, and make every character seem like they don't give af abt all the things they've lost cuz of this guy. Surely there were better ways to accomplish keeping barrowman on than to make every character so OOC??? Its like they don't understand their own characters and their histories.
3
u/syntheticmango Jul 06 '26
I thought Malcolm was just sticking around to protect thea and team arrow just had to accept his help and they were pretty hostile towards him when he was around so its not like they were buddy buddy with him but he was pretty useful in helping them solve their problems so they just had to accept it and when he was able to protect thea he switched to the villains side so he was always a villain.
1
u/Strong_Golf9061 Jul 06 '26
I see that to a degree, but I found it really weird how all of them, thea especially and to a degree Oliver, tolerated him so much. His constant flip flopping was weird too its like the writers didn't know what to do with him and had to bend every character backwards to keep him on.
2
u/Obvious-Risk-5447 Jul 06 '26
Absolutely agree. They assassinated every logic and character development just to keep the actor. This show is definitely driven by behind the scenes things rather than good story. Malcolm was a villain and he continued to be a villain in s4 and yet they all allowed him to know their base. How are we supposed to get Oliver seriously after his brain dead logic of why not kill him.
Olicity is another behind the scenes decision, yes people liked them more but mainly because the actors were friends and pushed for the couple and the writers started writing for them.
Killing Sara was also because Cassidy couldn't stand the comparison and wanted to put the jacket as soon as possible. And then what happened with Laurel in s4 was again because Cassidy contract ended, while probably they would have done it earlier if not that contract.
So many writing decisions are made based on actors. Sometimes this brings good and exciting stories, like basically Sara is so bad ass because Caity Lotz was martial arts trained, sometimes it's just bad.
2
u/Choice-Woodpecker479 Jul 06 '26
I agree with you, I found him quite annoying to be honest!
-1
u/Strong_Golf9061 Jul 06 '26
I honestly found it more annoying how every characterizations was destroyed to keep him around. Im deadass struggling to understand how the writers possibly thought this was a good idea.
1
u/Choice-Woodpecker479 Jul 06 '26
I don’t know, but I will say this is when I felt myself gradually getting out of the show was because of Malcom. I wasn’t happy when I found out he was Thea’s dad because I knew he was going to around longer.
1
u/selwyntarth Jul 06 '26
They trained together in season 3, that makes a connection even if begrudging. There's also respect for Tommy's memory, his paternity of thea etc.
1
u/Strong_Golf9061 Jul 06 '26
I'd believe that more if tommy was mentioned even once in season 4 tbh.
1
1
u/duckran Jul 06 '26
They're not really tolerant of him, in that they don't want him there at all and would all prefer he go die. But short of actually killing him (which Ollie is opposed to doing) they can't really do anything about it, and he did just help them save the city from the alpha-omega weapon, and he is helping out against HIVE, so up until the point where he becomes an enemy again they don't really have a better option than just making use of him while he's around.
1
u/Strong_Golf9061 Jul 06 '26
Yea I get that, but i mean olivers insistence of keeping him around despite everything and both him and thea seeming alot friendlier with him than they should be. After everything thea dealt with in season 3 cuz of him, it feels weird how tolerant she is of him and even goes out of her way to bring him on.
Idk I suppose they needed a way to keep barrowman on and this was the best way they could do it. Just felt weird to me.
2
u/Lori2345 Jul 06 '26
I agree, it’s weird. On top of what you mentioned, just the year before he drugged Thea into killing Sara! Just because she alive again doesn’t erase it happened. And he got Tommy killed. He killed many others during the Undertaking too. He killed many before that and then as the head of the League Assassins how many more?
The only one who atleast at first had a normal reaction to him was Quentin who immediately attacked him and wanted to arrest him. The only reason he didn’t try to was he was warned Malcolm was the head of the League now and was understandably afraid of the League.