My Pitch for a Better Season 4 of Arrow

Note: This version of season 4 of Arrow carries over consequences of events that happened in my version of season 3. Please read that before this. http://connorveenstra.blogspot.com/2016/04/my-pitch-for-better-season-3-of-arrow.html

Oliver wakes up in a hospital bed, his head wrapped in bandages. Detective Lance is sitting next to him. He promises Oliver that nobody ever found out. Oliver thanks him as he leaves. The doctor and nurse come in a remove Oliver's bandages, revealing burn marks on almost half of his face. Later, Diggle and Felicity rush in and ask him what happened. He describes the fight on the rooftop and what the Red Hood said about Ra's al Ghul. That can't be right, though, because Ra's has been dead for years.

Oliver wants to find out what's going on, but his loved ones force him to stay put. We have a quiet moment between Felicity and Oliver as they ask each other if they're ok. Felicity seems much more distraught, however, and Oliver holds her for awhile.

Cut to that night. Oliver has snuck out of the hospital and into the Arrowcave. As he collects his equipment, Diggle steps in, knowing that Oliver would go looking for answers as soon as possible. Diggle begs him to reconsider: think of Felicity and how she'd feel if Oliver was killed. Oliver turns to Diggle and says that Ra's al Ghul is too dangerous to be ignored. If he's still alive, Oliver needs to find him. Diggle concedes, only telling him to be extra careful.

Oliver starts off on his journey, using his mob connections to gather intel on the location of the League of Shadows. Oliver finally arrives at a mountain range where he's been told the League is and finds a huge door carved into the cliff face. He enters only to be attacked. Due to Oliver's unhealed injuries, he loses quickly.

He is brought before Nyssa and questioned on why he has come. After telling them what he heard about Ra's al Ghul, Nyssa tells him that the whole world thinks Ra's al Ghul is still alive. The League only uses the name because it still holds power.

They return Roy to him before they let him go, with Roy seeming to be and claiming to be that he's fine. They leave, Oliver not entirely convinced. Nyssa then goes into a dark back room, where she expresses her concerns about Oliver to a high backed chair. The person seated in it is drenched in shadow.

During all of this, back in Starling, Felicity has been experiencing acute RTS: she's vomiting, often staring off into space for minutes at a time, showering vigorously and crying often. At one point, we see her go to a pharmacy and pick up a pregnancy test.

When Oliver gets back to Starling, he is forced into bed rest while Roy takes on the city's crime as Arsenal. Through this, we get a sense of how crime is in Starling: gangs are chaotically disbanded, super criminals have all but disappeared and only a couple of metahumans have appeared.

Felicity tells Oliver that she's pregnant and she and Oliver must decide what to do with the baby. Though Felicity is against abortion, she's conflicted about it being conceived in rape. Oliver wants to keep it, remembering how he lost a son long ago.

One night, we see Roy out on patrol when he comes across a shady deal on the docks. He attacks them, but one of the thugs stops him by saying "Broken Arrow" calling him into a trance. They tell him that he saw nothing this evening and to move on. Roy obeys, running back into the night.

During all of this, we get quick glimpses at what the League is doing: mining in the mountains, Nyssa dodging Sarah's questions about what they're really doing and Nyssa talking to the shadowy figure. Eventually, Sarah's had enough and she snoops around until she finds a secret room with papers strewn about. She sees a giant map on the wall of islands, some of them crossed out. Then, she finds a large map of Starling City, with x's and troop deployments on it.

Suddenly, there's a sound of a sword being drawn, footsteps come running towards her and somebody jumps on top of her, stabbing her through the heart. We cut to Oliver having a dream about him holding his son. We pan up from the baby to a child with a sword on top of Sarah. It's Oliver's son, William. Nyssa rushes in and William scorns her for not keeping Sarah out of the way.

We have a scene where, in desperation, Felicity goes to her rabbi for help. He asks her if she should punish the baby for the sins of the father. After a long half season of deciding whether or not to keep the baby, Felicity says she wants it. She and Oliver embrace and that ends the half-season finale.

In the second half, William is preparing for his invasion of Starling and we get his backstory through flashbacks. His mother was sent on a plane by Mrs. Queen which promptly crashed in an Asian mountain range. She was discovered by the League of Shadows and Nyssa fell in love with her. She was taken care of until the baby was born, but she died in child birth. When Ra's al Ghul found out about the baby, he decided to raise him as the heir of the demon, taking away Nyssa's right to the throne. Nyssa has raised the child as heir ever since.

William's plan is to continue the goal that Ra's al Ghul never actually began: since Starling City is one of the worst contributors to world pollution he will use an army of soldiers each with their won supply of Lazarus fluid, making them unable to die, to destroy it and several other cities across the globe. Meanwhile, William has been searching for Ra's al Ghul's corpse to bring him back to life.

When the league captured Roy, William interrogated him and Roy let Oliver's secret identity slip. Nyssa eventually broke, telling him that Queen was his father and not Ra's al Ghul, which caused William to become resentful towards Oliver for abandoning him and his mother. It also causes him to become obsessed with proving himself a true heir to the demon, making him unstable.

Meanwhile, Oliver has taken back the Arrow mantle, but feels that his time is almost over. With the baby on the way, it might be time to settle down with Felicity. However, Oliver notices Roy is acting very odd, going on patrol almost every night. Oliver believes he might be looking for information about Thea, since his initial search failed.

One day, William shows up at his father's door and makes his declaration of Queen lineage. Both Oliver and Felicity are thoroughly surprised and put off by the boy's air of arrogance and superiority. Oliver attempts to bond with him, but Will acts passive aggressively toward him.

Will, in actuality, is partially here because he feels unconfident in himself. He needs to know where he comes from in order to move on. He asks Oliver about his grandparents and Aunt Thea. Eventually, Felicity tells Will about how Oliver believed he was dead and how he had mourned Will ever since. We can see a bit of softness break through Will's face as he's told this.

Sometime later, will sneaks into the Arrowcave and inserts a USB drive into the computer. Cut to the Queen mansion where all the Arrow family is gathered. Oliver gets up and proposes to Felicity. She says yeas and everybody cheers. Oliver sits back down and Diggle remarks that he looks happy. Oliver replies that he is.

Oliver's phone rings. A voice on the other line says to come down to the docks or Will will be killed. Oliver and Roy race to the docks and find the crate where they're supposed to meet the kidnappers. Just then, Felicity's whole system crashes and they lose communications.

A light flickers on and there stands Will, with a ninja guard by his side. Oliver is stoic, but it's evident he's holding back his shock. His only words are "You know you can't beat us, Will" to which Will responds, "Broken Green Arrow". Roy attacks Oliver, his superior strength out matching him.

Oliver wakes up tied to a chair and hangs his head in shame. Meanwhile, Will has begun his attack, with cops being useless and nobody to stop it. Will sits in the Queen Mansion watching the chaos from afar.

We cut to Roy, as he slowly makes his way out of the stupor. He flees from the soldiers around him and goes to find Oliver, still tied up, head hung. He flinches as Roy approaches, but Roy reassures him, cutting the bonds.

Oliver laments that his love and relief blinded him, that he should've seen this coming. Roy urges him, telling him that all of Starling will die if he doesn't do something. Think of Diggle. Think of Felicity. Oliver gets to his feet, grabs his weapons and heads to Queen Manor, while Roy goes to help in the streets.

Will goes through Thea's room, looking at pictures of his aunt and father. He picks up the amulet Oliver carved for Thea on the island. The lights go out and Will tenses. He grabs a short sword and creeps down the hallway.

"Father!" he calls out. No answer. "I was doing this for humanity! Starling is killing the world and I have to save it! I couldn't let you get in the way. Please understand."

Oliver jumps out and slams Will against the wall. He quickly disappears back into the shadows.

"I let you into my home, treated you as my son, let you in the company of my loved ones. And still you betrayed me!"

Oliver fires an arrow, pinning Will against the wall. Will tears free and an intense fight takes place in the darkness of the manor.

Oliver finally pins Will down and demands that he stops this. Will screams whether or not Oliver wanted him. He just needs to know. As Oliver stares into his face, he doesn't see an enemy. He sees a scared child. His lost son.

"Yes, of course."

Will talks into his sleeve, telling his troops to stand down. All around the city, ninjas lay down their arms. Oliver helps Will to his feet and tells him to leave. Now.

We cut to sometime later. The news is talking about the aftermath: they've captured all the soldiers and confiscated the Lazarus fluid, but they still have no idea who was behind the attack.

Back at Queen Manor, Oliver spends long hours in his room and won't let anybody in. Felicity enters his room and sits quietly next to him for a few seconds.

"I know how you feel, y'know, kind of. You feel like you've been shaken to your core and you can't trust anybody. Nobody understands how you feel. Well I do."

She puts a hand on his and keeps it there. After a few seconds, Oliver takes her hand in his. Felicity lays her head on his shoulder.

We cut to Lian Yu, where dozens of workers are digging up the shoreline. "I found it," somebody shouts. The other workers gather around to see and silence falls. It's the body of Ra's al Ghul. As they take the body back to the boat, two ninjas share a look on the main deck. One of them pulls down their mouth guard and smiles. It's Thea Queen. The other ninja smiles back and the season ends.

That was just the mainland story. Now we go to the Lian Yu flashbacks.

The camp that was set up was that of the League of Shadows. They imprison Oliver, where he meets several Russians. That's how he learns the language and gets his mob connections. Prisoners are forced to fight each other to the death blind folded. The winners can join their ranks. Oliver, however, comes to a stand-still with a prisoner who wears a blood red bag over his face. They're forced by Ra's to fight for days and Oliver eventually wins. However, he is kept from killing his opponent. He's taken before Ra's al Ghul and from then on, Ra's became Oliver's personal mentor, training him to be the most efficient warrior possible. Oliver bonds with him and begins to see him as a father figure. Ra's even gets to the point where he wants Oliver to be his heir even though he already has one.

Eventually, Ra's reveals why he came to the island: he's discovered a fluid he calls Lazarus underneath the island. With it, he will have an army of immortal warriors to destroy the world's most destructive cities. Oliver refuses to take part in this and Ra's has him locked back up.

He breaks out with the rest of the prisoners and a huge riot ensues. The prisoners get onto the boat while Oliver looks for Ra's. They have an intense fight on the beach. There's fires, explosions and shouting all around them, but right now it's just the two of them. Through he's very beat up, Oliver kills Ra's, but the boat has already left without him. He's still stuck.

And that's my version of season 4 of Arrow. If you'd like to see a season 5 let me know.