Arrow has its mid-season finale last night, and it ended on quite the gut punch. Be warned that spoilers follow.
1. Hey, Laurel actually does something!
I mean, her sonic scream still seems like more of an inconvenience than a viable weapon, but Laurel was an actual viable part of Team Arrow. Katie Cassidy is doing the best she can with the material, but the show doesn’t know what to do with her, and her martial arts/screaming skills are quite limited (seriously, she screams while doing Sheamus’s “are you not entertained?” movements – it looks cheesy as hell). At least this episode presents her as someone with a role, and that’s a big start.
2. Hey, Diggle didn’t!
The only thing worse than Diggle pining over his dead brother is Diggle being frustrated/stonewalled by his brother in a cage. I know I harp on this almost every week, but it shouldn’t be all that hard to make him interesting. When Darhk kidnaps Diggle, Thea, and Felicity, Oliver barely even looked at him in that gas chamber – he told Felicity he loved her, he looked longingly at Thea, and he more or less was like “Sup, Dig?” and then keeps looking at Felicity.
3. Darhk is starting to come into his own
The Malbec drinking devil is finally seemingly like a credible threat, in part because of how scared of him Malcolm Merlyn seems. Now, is that because the show doesn’t want to pay a bunch of extras in League of Assassins gear? Maybe, but between him thoroughly kicking Malcolm’s ass, his kidnapping of Ollie’s loved ones, and then the incredibly odd juxtaposition of the hit being put out on Ollie and Felicity and Darhk trimming the tree with his wife (?) and kid (?!), this is the most I’ve cared about/feared Darhk.
The positioning of Darhk as a guy who is both a business man trying to gain corrupting control over Star City and a magical demon dude is interesting, and (as I’ve said in the past) splits the difference between Ra’s al Ghul and Slade Wilson. But shouldn’t both of those sides of his personality allow him to know who the Green Arrow is? If he’s politically savvy and an evil genius, it makes no sense that Ollie’s identity is still unknown to him.
4. So, Felicity and Laurel will be sisters?
The weirdest romance this side of…actually, I have no way to complete that sentence. This is weird. Donna and Quentin seem like they are being put together because the show doesn’t have much to do with either of them right now, but then you realize that’s not really the case. Donna’s a tertiary character at best, and Quentin is acting as a double agent! This is just a weird excuse for some cringe comedy.
5. And…shit got real
First of all, the first scene with a drone firing bullets at innocent citizens was legitimately scary, especially considering all the terrible gun violence we’ve seen over the past few months. It makes Darhk seem legitimately evil and not in a supervillain kind of way. It was a perfect storytelling decision, and really raised the stakes.
But the stakes were raised even more by Felicity being shot up by Darhk’s forces at the end. Do I think the show would really kill off Felicity? No, no I don’t. But this adds some real stakes to the season, and seeing Ollie and Felicity seemingly put their differences aside and really commit to their love again raises the stakes. If Ollie can save Felicity, defeat Darhk, and find a reason for Diggle and Laurel to do stuff, this season will finally be worthy of what the show accomplished back in Season 2.
Sound off in the comments, Arrow-heads!
