This episode of Arrow was, without a doubt, the deadliest in the show’s history, with literally tens of thousands of people dying at the hands of Damien Darhk (and sort of Felicity…). Keep reading for my review, but be warned that major spoilers will be discussed.
1.Arrow’s Rogues
This week, we got as close to a collection of Ollie’s past villains as we’re likely to see in one episode, until Darhk (or someone else) organizes the next big prison break. We spend the most time with Anarky and the Calculator, both of whom realize that Darhk is so evil, they turn against them. This makes sense for the Calculator, who sees himself as a hacker/thief, but for Anarky, wouldn’t, you know, anarchy be a good thing for him? If he can stow away in the bunker, wouldn’t he be primed to mess up the ‘new world’ right good once the world starts over?
Felicity and her dad (CalculaDAD, aka Noah) are engaged in verbal sparring for most of the episode, with Noah trying to mend fences and Felicity wanting no part of it. It is easy to see both sides here; for Felicity, she’s just trying to save the world, and will deal with her emotions later. For Noah, if he’s going to die, he wants to go out knowing his daughter doesn’t hate him. He’s been a bit of a hastily sketched character thus far on the show, but his desire to really mend things with Felicity makes him a sympathetic character.
2. The Flashbacks are back, and zzz…zzz…zzz…zzz…zzz…zzz…
Seriously, does anyone care about these? This is my constant refrain, but this week it was especially noticeable because there was so much going on. Those 4-5 minutes could’ve been spent exploring Diggle’s guilt, or trying to show Felicity and Noah’s computer prowess more effectively than Noah just saying “Oh, I stopped them” casually, or literally anything besides the flashbacks. I know the show is going to try to make it all tie together in the next two episodes, but by this point, no one cares at all. Just drop it; we’ll all be ok.
3. Is all cell service knocked out of Star City?
There were two moments this week that really drove me crazy from a logic standpoint. The first involved the needing to steal from Curtis’s lab at PalmerTech – why didn’t they just call Curtis? He’s worked with them before, he’s their bro, and he works in the lab they are trying to break into. I’m already watching a show that requires a suspension of disbelief, but when the characters are just plain stupid, that’s hard to get behind.
Secondly, one line of dialogue would’ve solved a secondary issue with me quite easily: “I’ve been trying to get Barry on the phone all day, but I can’t seem to find him.” If the world was potentially ending in 24 hours, wouldn’t you call in the reinforcements? Barry, Constantine, Vixen – you make every call you can to bring in extra help. When there’s a time crunch, you especially call in the speedster. Last season, Barry showed up to help; shit, two weeks ago, Barry showed up to a funeral. The fact that the show just pretends that metahumans don’t exist when it adds drama is a frustrating trait.
4. Malcolm Merlyn – the most predictable person on television
I don’t necessarily mean that as a negative – the show has gone to great lengths to show us that, no matter what, Malcolm wants his daughter to be safe. This is refreshing, as it allows him to become a character that has nuance and varying loyalties, while still keeping him both truly evil and truly caring about his daughter. The character is shifty, and jumps sides, and betrays people, and cannot be trusted, but he can be sure to look out for Thea, and that makes him interesting.
What would make him more interesting, of course, is to give him some motivation besides that (and self preservation). But hey! One step at a time.
5. So…did the show just murder tens of thousands of people?
I know that, by diverting the missile away from Monument Park, Felicity and Noah saved millions of lives. And, granted, there was a time crunch to get all this stuff accomplished by – I’m not denying any of that. But since Felicity is messing with the GPS, shouldn’t she have tried to set down the nuke, oh I don’t know, in the water? Or, in the wilderness? Instead, she managed to kill those in the sleepy suburbs and, as a resident of sleepy suburbs, I don’t appreciate that!
But really, this is the most serious the show has gotten down the path of true super-villainy. This isn’t about revenge; it is about destroying the entire world. To stop Darhk is something that everyone on the show agrees must happen – there are two weeks for Ollie and co. to figure out how.
