But therein lies the rub. Season 5 is rapidly drawing to a close, and only now is it starting to get good. Worse still, this is becoming an all too familiar problem in the Arrowverse. Why is it so common for seasons to chug along and only really start clicking into place in the home stretch? Why does the Arrowverse have such a problem with speed?
The Cicada Switch-Up
Season 5 has mostly revolved around the debut of Cicada, a serial killer who only targets metahumans. Eventually viewers learned that Cicada is Orlin Dwyer, a blue collar loner who became an unlikely father figure to his niece after her parents were killed. When Grace herself was critically injured in the fallout of Team Flash's battle with Clifford DeVoe, Dwyer made it his mission to eliminate all metahumans.That's a perfectly solid origin story for an Arrowverse villain. The problem has always been that the series has been seemingly reluctant to progress beyond that point. Season 5 has devolved into a series of repetitive battles between Team Flash and Cicada, each of which ends with the villain escaping to kill another day. The teases about Nora's relationship with Thawne have only increased the sense that The Flash is dragging its heels rather than getting to the real meat of this year's conflict.Finally, that changed thanks to the events of "Time Bomb." One Cicada has been eliminated in favor of his meaner, deadlier successor, and the truth about Nora is finally out in the open. But again, why did we have to wait so long for that to happen? Why couldn't this plot twist have unfolded in December rather than March?Why wait till now, when Season 5 has only half a dozen episodes left to explore the fallout of these huge developments?
The Arrowverse's Speed Problem
Sadly, these questions have been raised before, and not just in connection to The Flash. It's become far too common for the Arrowverse shows to struggle with poor pacing and awkward storytelling structure, resulting in drawn-out seasons that only really begin to heat up in the final six or seven episodes.The Flash was the first big offender in this regard. Season 3 took a very long time to really click when it came to the conflict between Team Flash and Savitar. It was only after Savitar revealed himself to be a twisted, futuristic version of Barry Allen himself that Season 3's narrative gained the emotional hook it had been missing. Had that big reveal come a little sooner, Season 3 as a whole might have been far better off.Arrow made similar mistakes in Season 6. Following the excellent Season 5 and the engaging rivalry between Oliver Queen and Adrian Chase, Season 6 squandered all that momentum by fixating on Cayden James, quite possibly the blandest villain in Arrowverse history. It was only in the tail-end of Season 6, when James was betrayed and Ricardo Diaz emerged as the true villainous mastermind, that Season 6 began to redeem itself. Even then, it was too little, too late for what can now be labeled Arrow's worst season.
We're even seeing a similar problem play out on Supergirl this year. Season 4 doesn't suffer from all the flaws of Arrow Season 6 and The Flash Season 3, but it has veered in a very different direction with the introduction of Lex Luthor in the episode "O Brother, Where Art Thou?" For a season that's already been juggling too many moving parts, is throwing the most iconic Superman villain of all time into the mix really the wisest move? Why has it become so common for Arrowverse shows to so abruptly and dramatically alter course in early spring?
Finding Focus
It's clear by now that the Arrowverse collectively has a speed problem, and one that's become more apparent than ever in 2019. The question is what these shows need to do to address that problem.One solution is to pick villains that are better able to support a full, season-long narrative. The Flash: Season 1's handling of Reverse-Flash remains the best example. Season 1 boasted a very purposeful, well-thought-out structure. The slow process of revealing the true nature of Harrison Wells and his relationship to Barry Allen allowed for numerous cliffhangers and a hero/villain rivalry that steadily built until the season finale. Villains like Cayden James and Cicada simply don't have that same level of depth, and trying to force them into that mold is a big reason why those seasons failed.But this speed problem also raises a question many have been asking lately - do Arrowverse shows really need to follow the traditional 22-24 episode structure? Would The Flash Season 3 and Arrow Season 6 not have been much better off if the fat were trimmed and they were condensed down to 10-13 episodes instead? It's definitely no coincidence that the two best DC shows on The CW, Black Lightning and Legends of Tomorrow, deliver, shorter, more tightly paced seasons than the rest. Fewer episodes means less room for repetition and filler and less time until these major, status quo-altering plot twists arrive.
Arrow's eighth and final season may wind up serving as an interesting test case. At a mere 10 episodes, Arrow Season 8 will have to be much more streamlined and focused than any season before it. That could wind up being a very good thing for the series, allowing it to end in top form as it brings the story of Oliver Queen to a close. And if that proves to be the case, maybe we'll see the other Arrowverse shows follow suit. Why not make 10 episodes the new standard? It would give the current shows a huge momentum boost, and it would free up space for The CW to greenlight other Arrowverse shows to boot. That could easily be a win-win situation for DC fans. Jesse is a mild-mannered writer for IGN. Allow him to lend a machete to your intellectual thicket by following @jschedeen on Twitter, or Kicksplode on MyIGN.