I think the past couple episodes have shown a clear issue I'm having, and it's that the show really has a hard time with having story lines that aren't focused on Oliver. Now, I understand that the idea is that this show is, in fact, Oliver's story. I understand that, but that doesn't excuse the issue of weak side-characters. Look at a show like Buffy the Vampire Slayer, for example.
There were plenty of times where episodes didn't focus on Buffy herself. This ended up being very beneficial in the long run because it meant the entire cast all ended up being strong characters who could all hold their own storylines. Without compromising the pacing or integrity of the show's central story arc at a given time (which was always focused on Buffy in one way or another).
The reason why I bring this up is because while I'm interested in all the other stuff, it feels like the writers aren't. I'm liking Roy, but I don't feel he's a strong character at all and exists solely for fights and Thea. Diggle's role, it's frequently been pointed out, has been Oliver's conscience. Yet now there is no Oliver, and I understand that's the conundrum here and it could be utilized as an interesting character arc, but instead it's resolved quite quickly and he's the same as he was before. It's why he's the "team leader" now, but it doesn't even seem like that's the case, since it feels like Felicity is calling the shots now. So now Diggle's role is totally undermined so that Felicity has her own thing. Which is fine, except it really just amounts to a romantic arc with a superhero skin on it, and that's not enough to drive anything for me.
Laurel doesn't feel like a strong enough character either, despite this being "The Canary Trilogy" as some have called it, she always felt like a character that got swept up in things bigger than her and then proceeded pout and be self-righteous about it. Granted she is at least trying to do something, but it puts her in a bad light since it makes her seem highly irrational and incredibly stupid. I could say the same for Thea as well, but she doesn't hold Laurel's level of prominence within the story and is mostly there to play off Malcolm. As a result, Thea comes off as significantly more competent as a whole, but yet is still not a strong character.
I suppose my issue is that all of these characters have spent so much time being supplementary, that they don't have any power as focuses for the story. So now we have to have two storylines with Oliver per episode (The flashbacks, and his resurrection) in order to compensate for the apparent lack of "main character power" that this massive cast of characters possesses.
