A few things I disliked about Arrow season 4:
- Darhk as a villain
- Malcolm being around but doing nothing
- Laurel not doing anything until she dies (I loved Laurel's development as a character and we got none of it this season)
- Felicity's 5 minute disability (there was a solid chance to have disabled representation here but it was just used as a dramatic plot device)
- Soap opera Olicity (I used to root for Oliver and Felicity, but I never wanted it to take over the show like it did this season)
- Felicity's mum being around all the time and making the show too comedic
- The Bee Lady episode (I like puns but it was too much and incredibly childish - it didn't feel like the script was written for this show or these characters and it felt so out of place)
- Oliver having a son
- Oliver hiding having a son
- Oliver's son increasing soap opera Olicity
- Literally everything taking a backseat for Olicity's relationship (there was so much to do with their romance this season and the will-they-wont-they did nothing for me)
- Island storyline being unmemorable
- Magic everywhere (come on, that was never what this show was about and it totally changes the tone and makes it look way more trivial)
Of all these things I think the magic was what didn't make season 4 work for me. It made the show lose some of it's original grit and altered the tone the first 3 seasons set up.
But I'm told season 5 takes the show back to it's old roots, so I have hope that Arrow was just a victim of the season 4 curse.