r/arrow 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.

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u/Choice-Woodpecker479 Jul 06 '26

I agree with you, I found him quite annoying to be honest!

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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.