NOTE: Warner Bros. Home Entertainment provided me with a free copy of the Blu-ray I reviewed in this post. The opinions I share are my own.

Oliver Queen has withstood everything the world's thrown at him. As his masked vigilante alter ego, the boy billionaire has corralled countless criminals, hammered hordes of henchmen, and foiled no less than three terrorist plots against his beloved Star City. But as Oliver's hit show on the CW entered its fourth season, what else could there be to challenge our archery-inclined hero?

Fans asked themselves this very question last year, and the answer...well, it pretty much turned out to be more of the same. But as Arrow's fourth year of slinging justice unfolded, viewers bore witness to a few intriguing changes to the series formula -- namely the introduction of the mystical. Taking down super-powered metahumans is one thing, but how is Oliver going to save the day when he's up against a magic-infused madman? The answers lie ahead in the 24 thrilling episodes of Arrow's latest season to hit home media, a batch of stories that, while encountering its share of narrative shortcomings, lays out as much compellingly brooding material on the table as the comic-based series has seen yet.

He thought he was all done with the hero business. After saving Star City's skin for the umpteenth time, Oliver (Stephen Amell) hung up his hood and hoped to live the rest of his days in suburban bliss with hacker extraordinaire Felicity Smoak (Emily Bett Rickards) at his side. But the happy couple's world gets shattered by the arrival of the darkest forces his old hunting grounds have seen yet. The mysterious Damien Darhk (Neal McDonough) announces his intentions to crush Star City into the ground, backing up his threats by unleashing his own personal commando squad to sow chaos in the streets. With his friends and fellow vigilantes overwhelmed, Oliver has little choice but to come home, taking up the slightly different mantle of the Green Arrow to battle this latest threat. But not content to patrol the city at night, Oliver also decides to fight for its future in the light by launching a mayoral campaign. However, Darhk is not someone to be reckoned with, as his strange and magical abilities prove to be a massive obstacle for the Green Arrow and his crime-fighting comrades to conquer.

The old adage of "the more things change, the more they stay the same" comes to mind often throughout Arrow's fourth season. For as often as certain aspects of the show are effectively gripping, the whole package isn't as radical a departure from the episodes leading up to it as these strain to have you believe. Beyond referring to how the Green Arrow costume is just a sleeveless riff on Oliver's classic duds, much hubub is made over our protagonist changing his ways and providing a less aggressive beacon of hope, only for the series to resort to business as usual in no time.

The guy's promises that he's become a "gentler" hero than his previous incarnation fall on deaf ears, once you see him using just as many faceless goons for target practice (and only on rare instances playing the "it was only a tranq card" card). But if Arrow is responsible for even more woeful storytelling crimes, they lie with how its principal female characters are handled. To be fair, 99% of the players in this show's history have experienced some form of intense pain or loss, but to see characters like Rickards' Felicity and Willa Holland's Speedy undergo break-ups from near-meaningless relationships or (worse yet) have physical harm inflicted upon them in order to prop up a guy's arc is rather weak. For as successfully as this season transitions away from having Oliver fight the obscure villain of the week to focusing on his ongoing clash with Darhk, it loses a little something in mistaking punishing particular figures for capturing emotional complexity.

But as the eponymous archer promises Star City's populace more than a few times, not all hope is lost where Arrow is concerned. Save for the aforementioned missteps, this season's episodes settle into an attention-grabbing rhythm, with the creative team's newest batch of storylines proving more satisfying overall than the previous round. The addition of magic sure increases the stakes, in both Oliver's modern-day tango with Darhk and in the show's flashback scenes, which see him taking on a dangerous mission in the last place he wanted to be. It loosens up the series nicely and allows it to be more entertainingly silly than previous seasons, the effect not unlike when stodgy soap operas try shaking things up by having cults and demons run wild from time to time.

Once again, Amell does a commendable job of letting his buff physique and steely gaze carry him from adventure to adventure, although his period stiffness can't help be highlighted by the insanely charismatic McDonough acting circles around him as the devious Darhk. The Green Arrow's support squad is in typically solid shape (with Rickards overcoming what cliched material she can with a terrific performance), and tie-ins to the DC television universe are abound. Matt Ryan's chain-smoking spiritualist John Constantine swings by for a memorable appearance, and viewers get an ambitious, two-episode crossover event with The Flash that also sets up the origins of the CW's latest superhero saga, Legends of Tomorrow.

Not every story beat hits the mark (yeah, I went there), but Arrow still has the stuff to sate our appetites for costumed capers. With its engaging actors, uptick in dynamic fight sequences, and willingness to go just a touch over the top once in a while, this fourth season is one of the show's liveliest and most riveting to date. As more comic book series join the fray every year, rest assured knowing that Arrow's penchant for finding drama around every turn is still as active as ever.

BLU-RAY SPECIAL FEATURES:

-Footage from the show's 2015 San Diego Comic Con panel.

-Deleted scenes.

-Making-of featurettes.

-A gag reel.

(Released by Warner Home Video.)