I enjoyed season 4 for the most part. There are definitely problems with this season but the biggest ones for me doesn't come until the end of the season. So I'll get to all the major stuff later.
For know I'll start off with Kate. She could have been cut from this season completely. The only reason they brought her back was because she was finally available to return and the writers really liked her. Though I have to give them props for making her resurrection make sense.
This won't be too much of a problem if they expand on his character more next season but I really felt like Liam was brought in more or less to be Isaac's replacement. And I don't like him nearly as much as I liked Isaac. I don't HATE Liam. It's just hard for me to see him as anything other than Isaac's replacement. Though I did really the episodes where he was first introduced and Scott had to deal with turning someone for the first time.
Derek's storyline with Kate turning him younger was really weird to me and felt unnecessary. Speaking of Derek, I really don't like that he spends most of the season away from the other main characters. In the premiere they risked their lives, traveled all the way to Mexico, fought Mexican hunters and Berserkers. And after they find him and he returns to his normal age they don't ask if he has all his memories prior to his abduction, or why his eyes are yellow, if there is anything else they can do for him, NOTHING! Everyone just goes right back to school like nothing ever happened. They risked their lives to save him but can't be bothered to go check on him and ask if he's ok. I don't understand that.
And the story was pretty anticlimactic throughout the entire season. We all knrw most if not all the main characters would still be alive by the end of the season so there's no real suspension or tension in having assassins just trying to kill them the whole season.
What I loved so much about the first season of Arrow was that the villains main goal was to level half the city and Oliver was actually failed in stopping him from doing that. It really raised the stakes in a big way and gave the show a lot more credibility. It's way more interesting to have a villain with a purpose he can actually achieve that would still have a negative impact on the characters. As opposed to the villain just trying to kill the hero.
Anyway I'm going to talk about my major issues with season 4 now. The first is Malia and Peter's storyline. For several episodes we knew that Peter was Malia's biological father. And of course we were waiting for her to find out. And the scene at the end of episode 7 when she finds out is fantastic.
The way she looked at Stiles, the way Stiles looked at her, the music, the way she walks away and leaves him, EVERYTHING. It's a real tear-jerker and one of my favorite scenes in season 4. The problem is what Malia does after that. She just found out Peter is her real father and that her boyfriend was lying to her about it and the first thing she does is go back to the vault when no one is there?! Why?!
I was expecting the next episode to open with her confronting Peter and telling him to go to hell and that he'll never truly be her father. But instead she decides to look for answers in the vault for some reason. Then Peter conveniently shows up for no reason and makes her a deal: she helps him with something and he'll tell her where her real mother is. Later towards the end of the season we find out he wants Malia to kill Kate. At this point we've seen Scott and other werewolves who are stronger and have way more experience fight Kate and get their asses kicked. Why the hell does Peter think Malia has a shot at killing Kate?
In fact, I don't get why he thinks she has a better chance of betting her than he does. He is clearly stronger than her! So that's a HUGE plot point that makes no sense. On top of that she doesn't even TRY to kill Kate in the finale. WHY?! She agreed to the deal she made with Peter so why did she not try to kill Kate in the finale. It would have been fine if they played it like she only had two choices: to go after Kate or save Scott.
And she decided that Scott and her pack are more important than finding out who and where her mother is. But that's never discussed or talked about so it comes off like a plot point the writers just forgot about. Also Peter plans to take Scott's alpha power for himself but he throws Malia a weapon to kill Scott with. That doesn't make any sense. Peter needs to be the one to kill Scott if he was going to take his alpha power so why would Peter get Malia to do it? The plot holes in season 4 are just baffling to me.
The second big issue I have is that Derek gets his werewolf powers back at the end of the season. It was really cool seeing Derek's vulnerability as a human, teaching him how to use guns, and especially his relationship with Braeden. All that stuff came from him being human and dealing with that. It feels really cheap to undermine all that by giving him his powers back. Don't get me wrong. I love Derek as a werewolf but we've seen that for 3 seasons now. And for the sake the story I think that they should've either permanently removed his powers or never taken them in the first place, especially because it's never even fully explained what exactly Kate did to him.
My third problem is that Meredith being the Benefactor was really contrived just so the no one could guess who it is. That revaluation barely made any sense and it's certainly wasn't satisfying. At least in my opinion.
My next problem with this season is that Stiles' name appears on the end Deadpool and literally nothing is done with that! No one talks about it, no one tries to kill him, NOTHING! As someone as it was to see Dylan play a villain in season 3B that whole Nogitsune storyline was problematic for several reasons so I'm glad they didn't rehash it just because it was popular with the fans. Having said that, if they weren't revisiting that storyline then Stiles' name should never have shown up on the Deadpool. As it stands, Stiles is technically still a supernatural creature according to the writers. And we haven't seen any evidence of that since the 3B finale.
And finally my last major issue is that the main problem of the season is resolved before the end of the season. For most of the season the main threat is the Benefactor and the Deadpool but that whole issue is resolved in episode 10 which makes the remaining two feel like filler episodes in a weird way.
As much as enjoyed the finale it felt like there was no real build-up to it with the exception of the previous episode. I will say though, I really liked that there was no cliffhanger at the end of the season. It's the first season of the show that hasn't had one. And I really like that because outside of them continuing the Desert Wolf storyline, I had no idea what to expect from the next season. All in all I think I liked season 4 more than most people but it's definitely not the best season.