Didn't the showrunner say that we'd be getting a death early in this season (at the end of S3 he said this, IIRC). I'm not sure if you'd considering this "early" anymore, but I still believe it's Daniel. His actor has been wanting to leave for a while anyway so I'm not surprised if it turns out to be him.
Contrary to everyone's opinion, I prefer S1 & S2 > S3 & 4. It's not just about the writing, but the cast, tone, timing and such. Despite S2's flaws, the show was still considerably fresh so it was pretty tolerable (tho I kinda liked the season's storyline with the Initiative
) and it had some interesting storylines in-between the Initiative stuff whereas, years later and it's just the same old stuff and some lame twists.
I find it harder to watch through later S3 and S4 compared to S1 & 2. I keep watching because I really want to know how it ends and I do enjoy it, but not like I used to.
I enjoy this season and I think it was pretty great till Emily revealed her identity. Afterwards the quality has really dropped in these last two episodes. Not horrible episodes, but nothing great either. I think the climactic moment such as Emily revealing her identity wasn't really met with a good aftermath. We've just had some sloppy writing in the following episodes. I don't think some of the "twists" or whatever it's trying are really carried out well anymore either. A lot of it feels random and PURELY for the sake of shock value than the sake of pushing the story forward and such (as evident by the promo for the next-episode which had no scenes or details about anything exception of dramatic death scenes).