Welcome back to another, final season, of Arrow. How will Stephen Amell take his final bow? At the end of last season Oliver was charged to do a very Oliver thing: forsake his newly won friends and family to go it alone on an arduous journey to hopefully save those he loves. That journey just so happens to be across the multiverses in the lead up to the DCWverse crossover this year Crisis on Infinite Earths, man this show has really changed from those early Nolan infused days of “no powers.”
1. Nostalgia Trip
One of the real joys from last season was Beth Schwartz reflexive use of various Arrow narrative techniques to either subvert or plainly use them. This reflexive quality fed into the shows overall operational theme for the season and was a sign of how much the show had grown and matured over the seasons. That reflexivity is taken up a notch as Oliver treks across the multiverse and the show plainly restates and pays homage to past seasons, starting with the first one and “Starling City.”
“Startling City” packs about a seasons worth of plot into a single episode. It is a lot to pack in there which makes the plot feel somewhat disconnected and just happening – which isn’t entirely wrong since Ollie is coming to Earth-2 midstream. What makes this nostalgia trip work though is how that plot is used to inform the audience on the character of Oliver Queen and his importance. It gives us a world that hasn’t had Ollie in 12 years, and initially it confirms to Oliver that he should go it alone. His mother is alive, Tommy is alive, most of the people around him he has lost greet him as he comes home. That is a very Oliver justification for going it alone, but that’s what Diggle is for to show him the truth and see how Earth-2 is perhaps changed for the lesser by his lack of presence. How good could a world without Speedy be?
2. Constants and Variables
I’m not entirely sure how much Diggle being around will be a recurring thing, he is a regular so he’ll be around in some form. Judging by the very “Crisis” like final moments, Maybe Oliver’s trip across the multiverse won’t be so lonely.
On this trip it will be interesting to see what the writers room considers to be the constants and variables for the DCWverse multiverse. We meet the Hood and Dark Archer of Earth-2, but they aren’t who you’d think they were. Tommy is the Dark Archer, driven like his multiversal father by extreme loss to undertake an Undertaking. The Hood is actually Josh Segarra’s Adrian Chase, but he’s a good guy. Segarra’s turn as the Hood was excellent on many levels, after playing what was a essentially a dark twisted version of Oliver back in season 5 this rendition features a similarly cartoonish twist. He’s doing a parody of Amell’s moody, gruff guy, act from season 1, there is a certain amount of side eyed “I didn’t act like this did” from Amell when they interact.
3. Stock Characters
As an ongoing franchise, the series understandably has series regulars. How they would be handling those contractual arrangements as Oliver galavanted across the multiverse was one of the questions that piqued my interest. For this episode at least Juliana Harkavy and Rick Gonzalez showed up as stock heavies for Tommy Merlyn. It isn’t much but as with the conscious restating of events accesses their star power within the audience in this way adds more than if they’d just been random actors. Their presence also helps to further show what a world without Oliver Queen would look like for those around him.
4. Action!
It’s an Arrow premiere so that means James Bamford is in the directors chair once again, and that means action. Bamford has gotten more assignments that aren’t as action based over the years, but his well rehearsed steady cam tracking shot style is his signature. Before he was directing he was the stunt coordinator for the series, they used to put out these really nice little featurettes on how they did the stunt work actually, which must’ve made this episode very nostalgic and wild. He changed a few things, but “Starling City” sticks to what was already on in season 1. Oh how I want to see what he can do on Batwoman.
Continued below5. Star City: 2040 and the Deathstroke Gang
Overall I rather enjoyed the Star City 2040 and New New Team Arrow from last season, in the end it created a strong parallel thread for the events in the present like the best of Arrow “flash” C-plots. Judging by this episode that sort of parallel connection isn’t as immediately apparent, as NNTA protect a wealthy Star City citizen from much talked about and now seen Deathstroke Gang, lead by John Jr.. They also experience their own growing pains. In an episode with three Arrow’s it is interesting to note the similarly stubborn mood they all take. However, this c plot (by screen time it’s really more a of a B) lacks any sort of thematic cohesion with Oliver’s core mission. This gap isn’t an immediately bad thing, as its own thread it served its purpose and was fine. If Schwartz and the writers room makes the Star City 2040 stuff the equivalent of a backup strip within Arrow that could work.
It did provide for a nice bit of reflexive commentary as William, exasperated, wonders why no one listens to the “Tech.” That’s a recurring issue in all the DCWverse, one of those constants I guess.
The return with “Starling City” pays homage to the past of the show that started this whole DCWverse and helps to build its future.
