So yeah, I realized that I stopped blogging about Arrow recently. It's partly because I took a one-month hiatus from the show after the pretty underwhelming Ep. 6, and partly because there have been fewer things to talk about.
Episodes 6 through 8 have been rather dull (I wasn't a fan of the Huntress sideplot). The plot has started to pick back up again, but unfortunately Arrow isn't one of those shows you can watch out of order without missing out on some stuff related to the overarching plot (and the Wikipedia entries aren't detailed enough, dammit). Mostly, I've started to tire of the somewhat soap-opera-esque family/friend drama in the show. Almost every episode has one of Oliver's family members/friends criticizing the living daylights out of him because of his double life/inability to open up, and then later on the person apologizes...only for the pattern to repeat in the next episode. Gah.
On a more positive note, treatment of female characters has improved a lot lately, except for that cringe-worthy Helena Bertinelli subplot. I didn't like that Helena's backstory was changed from the comics, from seeking revenge for the death of her family to seeking revenge for the death of her fiancé. Oliver Queen has this chauvinistic attitude that he's able to "save" her, but then gives up because she's "beyond" saving. Hell, he even designs her signature Huntress costume for her, which was too much for me, and they break up solely because of Helena's continued angst over her fiancé's death.
So yeah, that's Arrow.
