The Arrow-renaissance is upon us. Major, major spoilers follow.
1. Curtis becomes more terrific, less happy
After teasing T-Spheres last year, it was only a matter of time before the show let Curtis Holt more closely resemble Michael Holt. Curtis really saved the team’s bacon this week, and the whole episode he is looking forward to reuniting with his husband for dinner. The show was so heavy-handed with it that there was almost no way that it would be a happy reunion, and it wasn’t.
Curtis has been the show’s strongest example of the hero’s sacrifice; for his spot on Team Arrow, it is literally costing him his marriage. For him to continue, it must be the most important thing in his life, as he’s losing what used to hold that spot. That’s my one criticism of the show’s handling of his character: sure, he enjoys being part of the team, but it doesn’t seem to be the most important thing for him yet. If it gets there, this storyline will ring much more true.
2. Felicity and Thea take separate paths
Thea, as I’ve discussed before, is the coldest and toughest of the Queens, and so to see her try to spin the blame on Felicity’s dead boyfriend wasn’t a surprise. What was a surprise, was seeing Diggle’s pep talk to Felicity not take root. Diggle, correctly, identified Felicity’s super power as empathy, and tried to show her that she wasn’t meant to be this cutthroat. Temporarily it worked, but she, like Thea, is looking at the big picture. Her having a “team” to back her up is what will help Star City be better off in the long run. But, it could also, potentially, eat away at her soul a little bit.
Thea sees this happening to her, and walks away. Will Felicity fall into the same trap, or is she stronger in that way than Thea is?
Felicity has been handled in a really interesting way this season. The chemistry between her and Oliver is almost totally gone, and that’s not a knock. They’ve shown her really move on, and Billy’s death shook her to her core. She reminds me almost of Caitlin Snow on The Flash, who after Ronnie’s death (each time) needed to re-evaluate everything.
That said, I still want her and Ollie to wind up together. We’ll see.
3. Oliver splitting his personality
Yes, it felt a lot like the end of The Dark Knight, but Oliver turning on the Green Arrow in public was, what seems, a noble act, and one that would preserve the memory of Billy, the integrity of Adrian Chase, and allow Oliver to keep his job.
It also seems to do two almost contradictory things, story-wise. First, it sets up the rest of the season to have an all-out assault from all sides – Vigilante, Prometheus, and now the SCPD. While the cops have never exactly teamed up with Team Arrow, there has been a quiet truce for the past few seasons. That’s over now.
But the larger change this could signal is this: could this be the beginning of the show’s end game? Oliver deciding that his role as mayor is more important than his role as Green Arrow could, perhaps, see him give that up, once and for all. I actually think this would be a bold and brilliant move for the show, and the Arrowverse in general. Imagine Arrow ending, but a new show, set in Star City popping up, with Ollie as a supporting character – that’s a show I’d like to watch.
4. Prometheus revealed!
OK, here come the major spoilers.
You got me, Arrow.
We comic readers just knew – we fucking knew – that Vigilante was Adrian Chase, and that could explain his icy behavior and seemingly unquenchable thirst for justice. But then this week, they’re all “syke!” Nope, he’s Prometheus.
And it totally worked! The surprise worked, it didn’t seem forced, and it makes me really excited for the rest of the season to see how it all shakes out.
5. The team – and the show – at its best
This episode’s big finale, even with having Dinah, Thea, Quentin, and Ollie at the press conference and not in full on team mode, was still an amazing example of what the team – and the show – can be. The show began with Ollie being a one man war on crime, and it has grown to something so much bigger and more interesting than that. The show’s first season was a bit of a slog, in part because Ollie isn’t all that interesting. Once the show gave Diggle and Felicity more involved roles, it started to improve. The show has always succeeded when it felt most like a comic, and this felt a lot like a good comic.
Let’s hope this is the start of another strong run of episodes leading up to the finale. I’m not saying this is going to rank as high as season two, but it has already, to me, surpassed seasons one, three and four.
Am I being too kind? Let me know in the comments!
