‘Arrow’ Season 4 premiere: What did we really accomplish?

Upon his return to Star City, Oliver Queen looks out the window of a limousine and stares at a graffiti-covered, worn-down building. Maybe it was a store or an apartment at one time. Now, it’s boarded up, bombed out, its owners likely run off after hell came to the city courtesy of Malcolm Merlyn.

Or Slade Wilson. Or Ra’s al Ghul. Or any of the other myriad maniacs who have tried to grind the neighborhood to ash in the past three years.

It’s an exhausting sight for the man in the green hood.

“What did we really accomplish?” Oliver asks.

As “Arrow” enters its fourth season, the series finds itself faced with the eternal quandary of most comic book and superhero-based stories: What are we really fighting for? “Arrow” lives in a world where its hero can never die and his city can never truly be saved or destroyed.

This isn’t an “Arrow”-exclusive issue, of course. Gotham City will always be hell on earth no matter how many lunatics Batman tosses into Arkham Asylum. For every time Iron Man and company save the earth, another global threat will cause someone to yell “Avengers, assemble!”

That’s exactly where we find ourselves at the outset of the fourth season of “Arrow.” After watching Ollie, Diggle, Thea and company run off the League of Assassins while the city was under siege, we come back to find ... the city under siege.

“Arrow” tends to get stuck in a loop with its villains. Merlyn used a weapon of mass destruction to wipe out a swath of the city in Season 1. Deathstroke came running with an army of faceless super-powered goons to destroy the city in Season 2 and killed a bunch of city officials in the process. Ra’s al Ghul was planning to use a bioweapon and an army of faceless well-trained goons to destroy the city in Season 3. Somewhere in the middle, that Brick guy started targeting city leaders while ransacking the city with an army of faceless ... you get it.

Enter Damien Darhk (Neal McDonough), a former disciple of Ra’s al Ghul who is running around town killing city leaders while commanding an army of faceless goons while stealing weapons of mass destruction. His attack plan is a pastiche of all the attack plans that came before, and the rinse-lather-repeat villainy that goes on in Star City is starting to become a little grating.

While Darhk’s plan screams retread throughout the premiere, the episode does shine when it focuses on the new and altered relationships between the members of Team Arrow.

Everything from Ollie and Felicity’s domestic bliss (“You have failed this omelet/shrimp alfredo/broccoli rabe” is destined to become a meme) to the team’s less-than-enthusiastic reaction to Ollie barking out orders upon his return clicks perfectly. The bi-play between Oliver, Diggle, Felicity and Thea (and ... ugh ... even Laurel) really carried the show in the back half of Season 3, when the Ra’s plot grew wildly overcomplicated, and it does the same here.

The gang has really taken on a family dynamic, and I especially enjoy how deeper relationships have opened up outside of Ollie’s orbit. Laurel and Thea taking on a little sister-big sister relationship is especially interesting because that has the looks of a symbiotic pairing, with Laurel playing the mature older sibling while Thea is the vastly superior fighter.

Glad to see Diggle’s rage toward Oliver hasn’t subsided one bit, and it shouldn’t. Comic book heroes are given a pass far too often for making questionable decisions. But Diggle’s fierce love of family has always defined him, and that’s going to be the backbone of what I imagine will be Oliver’s lengthy fight to regain his trust.

Seeing Diggle abandon vigilantism for one night because he has a wife and kid to get home too is a nice touch as well. It gives him a separate identity from the rest of the crew, who have more or less thrown themselves head on into hero-ing.

The decision to have Felicity, not Oliver, be the one to voice her frustration at civilian life was also a nice subversion of an old comic book trope. We’ve all gotten used to seeing the hero’s girlfriend nag him about putting on a cape and cowl, but that scene where Felicity fessed up to secretly aiding the team while they were supposed to be on vacation was both charming and refreshing.

As much as I enjoy watching the way the needs of Star City change the relationships within Team Arrow, though, the crisis facing the city still needs to be interesting. This complaint could be nullified as Darhk’s plan evolves, but as it stands now, I’m less concerned about his destroying or failing the city and more about his failing the series.

What’s Left In The Quiver:

• Can we do something about Diggle’s costume? Please? Magneto With Guns is just ... really bad.
• Glad to see we’re not wasting any time setting up the effects of the Lazarus Pit on Thea. I’m not one to hold TV series to be psychotically faithful to the comics they are based on, but the cost of reincarnation through the pit is one of those DC rules I hold near and dear to my heart.
• So Damien Darhk is a ... metahuman? Mystic? Demon? Huh? This is definitely a new take on the character. What little I know (er, Googled) about the comic character reveals a high-end criminal and little else.
• Lance being under Darhk’s thumb could be interesting, but moreso if Lance entered a deal with the devil. I don’t know how interested I’d be in seeing Lance blackmailed by a threat to Laurel because he knows Laurel is the Canary and really needs to drop the overprotective dad shtick at some point.
• I’m not going to say much about the closing graveyard scene because it highlights one of the show’s worst instincts. “Arrow” loves ending its episodes on cheap cliffhangers. Is Oliver dead? Of course not. Is Felicity about to get shot by one of Deathstroke’s goons? Of course not. The cut from the engagement ring to the headstone seems designed to make us believe Felicity is going to die six months out from the premiere, but I’m not buying that. I’m not even sure Darhk is the villain Ollie refers to wanting dead (remember, there’s a certain Merlyn and a certain League of Assassins out there). We already have flashbacks to contend with mid-episode. We can do without flash forwards.

@JamesQueallyLAT will gladly live in domestic bliss with Felicity while Ollie’s out there punching Damien Darhk’s face in. Likewise, he’s also available to keep Karen Page occupied when Season 2 of “Daredevil” returns to Netflix next year. Basically, I’m a superhero stand-in boyfriend. What? My medication? Oh it’s around here somewhere ...