On this episode of Arrow: Everyone does something dumb. Stay tuned!
1. AHHHH Gene, you got me again!
Note: I will take any opportunity to make a Gene Parmesan joke, and Christopher “Human Target” Chance is essentially the Gene Parmesan of Arrow. While I know the character has roots outside of this show, his usage here is relegated purely to deus ex machina status, popping up when all other options seem absolutely exhausted.
The reason this fell a little flatter than I may have expected is because Arrow has also gone to the Tommy Merlyn well too many times now: flashbacks, that one weird time Ollie went to Starling City when he was supposed to be on the island, alternate Earth versions. There seems to be a Tommy appearance every season, and every season its supposed to be this emotional punch to the gut.
But the reality is quite different: this isn’t the same show Tommy was a co-star of. Arrow season one was nothing like Arrow season six. A good chunk of the audience may have been instructed, like I was when I started watching, to skip season one, as it didn’t do anything. And even if they did watch it, their lingering memory wasn’t of Oliver’s best friend Tommy Merlyn, but rather, Oliver cucking Merlyn before he died.
Stop trying to make Tommy the hole in Oliver’s soul. It’s not a thing.
2. This is what a battle for a soul looks like
I know Rene is not a perfect character, what with his constant ‘hoss’-ing and whatnot, but he is the perfect embodiment of ideals versus reality. He wants to help Ollie, he wants to make things right, but he just can’t in the face of his daughter. That’s a relatable, understandable position for his character to take. He is acting as, I suspect, many parents would act in that scenario. It tears him up inside, but he has to do it, because protecting his daughter is paramount in his life.
With every word Rene said on the stand, you could see the knife turning in him, in a way that we’ve never really seen with Oliver. Part of the reason is that Rene is a character essentially designed for this exact scenario. He doesn’t have layers and layers of motivation, the way Ollie does. He’s a simple character, and therefore he can pull this off really well.
Side note: While there is more going on with Laurel now, this is still too little, too late for us to really care about her soul, either.
3. That whole not killing thing…
One of the major shifts in the show is Oliver’s reluctance to kill, especially killing people who seemingly were put in a bad situation by someone else. Judge McGarvey is likely a shady dude, one able to be bought by a monster, but does that deserve to get him killed in Ollie’s book? By having Chance impersonate him, the entire team needed to know what was going to happen, especially as they didn’t hold onto him after Chance did his thing.
But they seemed more than content to let him eat lead in an alleyway, and so while they were celebrating, he was getting dead. Heroes?
4. The docket number
I am too lazy to look it up, but let me see if I can freestyle a guess as to what the docket number means. 73 is right around the Neal Adams/Denny O’Neal run, right? And 1941 seems like the year he was created, if memory serves, so let’s say the first three numbers are the publication of his first appearance, and 73 is to designate its most famous run. Someone look it up!
5. Why would anyone live in Star City?
As if the destruction of the Glades, the invasion of the League of Assassins, Damien Darhk’s horseshit that led to a nuke landing in the suburbs, and all the dead cops wasn’t enough to send you packing, now the entire city is corrupt. Seriously, unless you’re in on the corruption, why would you ever choose to live there? After this trial, I’d pack up my family and flee.
