Oliver returns home to Starling City after years stranded on an island, motivated to become a vigilante wearing a hood because of a book his father left behind that implicates the corrupt businessman and politicians harming the people. Along the way he learns of the conspiracy connected to that book has far more destructive plans in mind. Flashbacks to the island reveal that he was not alone, and has to toughen up to face against a paramilitary team.
Tropes in Arrow Season One:
- Always Someone Better: The Dark Archer proves to be better than Oliver in every confrontation.
- Betty and Veronica: How the love triangle in Season One ends up. Tommy is Betty, Oliver is Veronica, and Laurel is Archie. This all falls apart, however, when Tommy sacrifices himself to save Laurel at the end of the season.
- Break the Cutie: Oliver was not prepared in any form to be a stranded survivalist, let alone the problems he faces against Fyers and his men.
- Ditch the Bodyguards: Practically the first thing Oliver did after meeting Diggle, and quickly became a Running Gag for a few episodes thanks to the escalation of each of his escape attempts from the previous one. Diggle even lampshades this to Oliver's new bodyguard.Oliver: I'm going to the bathroom.
[Oliver leaves and the bodyguard stands next to Diggle for about a minute]
Diggle: Yeah, man. That boy's long gone. Pfft. - Early-Installment Weirdness: Oliver's Private Eye Monologue mercifully disappeared after the first few episodes after Diggle joined him and he had someone to talk to about vigilante stuff. Also, Sara Lance was a brunette in the pilot, with her name spelled "Sarah" in a news piece on Oliver. Also, the entire season has a very different feeling and atmosphere compared to the rest of the series, being much more grounded and feeling almost Nolan-like at times.
- Elaborate Underground Base: The steel mill basement looked plausible as something Oliver threw together on his own over a couple of days. It is slowly upgraded over the season, and on to the next few seasons as well to the point of looking equal to any military ops center.
- Fight to Survive: The flashback scenes; in fact "Survive" is an Arc Word.
- The Lopsided Arm of the Law: If Star City PD spent as much time catching criminals as they did trying to catch the Hood, the Hood wouldn't feel the need to patrol the city.
- Plausible Deniability: Oliver deliberately gets himself implicated as The Hood, knowing that his return coming so soon to when the Hood first appears (armed with expensive gear) would bring questions eventually. Having Diggle stop a crime dressed as The Hood gets him exonerated. This protects him from later questions, knowing he was exonerated once.
- Poor Communication Kills: If Robert Queen had said "You need to get back to Starling City and stop Malcolm Merlyn from killing millions of people by destroying the Glades." instead of "Right my wrongs! Survive!" we could have avoided the first season.
- Where Does He Get All Those Wonderful Toys?: Some of his more abstract materials are in a box he takes with him from the island, but including sophisticated electronic devices he clearly couldn't have acquired given the primitive conditions we see him living in during his rescue.
