Oh, joy – an Arrow episode set in Russia. Wait…it wasn’t terrible?
1. Lines Crossed
The theme of this whole episode was people taking things further than they wanted: Felicity’s ties to the hacktivist culture bring her close to the edge, Rory gets closer than he’d like to a nuke, Quentin is pushed by Rene’s mock-interview, Oliver resorts back to thuggery. Everyone is doing what they need to do, but what they need to do keeps getting tougher and tougher.
One positive from this season is that it has been showing the vigilante game as a grind – it may not be as full of magic or super powers as past years, but this shit is tough. You can see it in Rene’s face, which always seems to be in a state of healing, or in Oliver’s non-stop schedule. There is no glamour in this life – you don’t get the girls going gaga for this team the way they do for Kid Flash.
And that fits with the tone of the show nicely. This is, at its heart, a street level show, and street level heroes are always the ones who leave the most of themselves out there.
2. Bad ass Felicity
The past few weeks have been very heavy on Felicity, and that is great. She and Ollie are still not dating again – which is probably a good thing – and she’s finding ways to be more than just the eye in the sky for the team. Her posing as…I don’t know, a beautiful, powerful woman? (but isn’t she already that? I’m confused)…anyway, the scene with her exhibiting her influence was a nice new side of Felicity that we haven’t seen in the past.
The coming rift between her and Ollie over her hacktivist activities is going to be a big one, and will position the show in an interesting place: for the first time since the start of the show, it appears that Ollie and Felicity will neither be romantically linked or ideologically linked.
3.Quentin’s back!
After a stint in rehab, Deputy Mayor Quentin Lance is back, baby! He’s salty, he’s overacting, he’s Quentin! He brings the show that hardscrabble cop tone that defined the first few seasons, and his “pairing” with Rene was an inspired one. Both of them have the potential to be a little rudderless, as they can’t really do what the rest of their teammates can do. The story at the end of Rene’s connection to Quentin from his childhood was a nice touch as well. The show was working hard to give some drama to Quentin’s return, with an interview striking fear in his heart, but at least it was trying to find something for him to do that was unique. I think he’ll be a big part of the backend of the season, what with the DA Chase and the lingering death investigation of Felicity’s boyfriend, so it was nice to have him back.
4. A hug from Ragman
So, Ragman’s rags hugged a nuke, and saved the day, but then lost their mojo. This was both the best and worst use of Ragman possible: it showed the full potential of his powers, but also eliminated them, seemingly forever. Look, Ragman was never a perfect fit for the show, but Rory has been a fun member of the team (even with his hilariously mispronouncing of Yiddish words), and the character somewhat tied the show to the other CW shows’ more grandiose powers and characters.
I’m sure he will be back eventually – maybe there will be a Lazarus Pit he can dump the rags in – but the show will suffer a little in the interim.
5. The girlfriend puts it together
So, Ollie’s reporter girlfriend is putting it all together, and seems to have figured out that he is the Green Arrow. To this I say, of fucking course. Remember in season two, when everyone basically assumed that Ollie was the Hood? Sure, it was disproved, but people still believe shit that has been disproved all the time! It seems like it would only be logical to still suspect him, wouldn’t it? But it is presented here as if this is the greatest bit of detective work ever put together.
Look, this wasn’t a terrible episode: it sort of wrapped up Diggle’s story, it brought Dinah onto the team, it gave some character growth for all non-Curtis team members, and it made Russia actually relevant for once.
What did you think? Let me know in the comments!
