Oliver has been dealing with his demons for seasons on this show, but with a title like “The Demon,” he meets one of his in the flesh.
1. The Demon
When the Demon was first announced, both the mysterious figure on level two and the press release for the episode, it pointed in a pretty clear direction. So clear that I didn’t quite think they would do it, or at least it wouldn’t be Talia breaking into Ollie’s cell. Still it’s always nice to see Lexa Doig pop up, and we didn’t see the body after all.
The revelation that all of this was part of her scheme to get Oliver down to level two and help with her prison break is excellent misdirection by the show. It also highlights how isolated Oliver is from the rest of the core cast, it’s been five episodes and he has only shared the screen twice with other regulars and that was in the first episode.
Talia being in Slabside because of run in with an person from Gotham is nice tease. Having looked at set photos, there isn’t a clear indication if the potential Ruby Rose Batwoman show would be set on Earth-Arrow or another one. But if it is on Earth-Arrow, Lexa Doig showing up could offer some interesting possibilities and twists on the larger Bat-mythos.
2. Breaking the Habit
I love it when writers make villains right and wrong at the sametime. Dr. Parker, who really was going the full Hugo Strange, was right about Ollie perpetuating a cycle of violence due to his desires to take on the sins of his father and violently avenge the citizens of Star City. He was wrong in the way to break that cycle.
The struggle between differing identities and desires has been baked into the show from the start, Parker’s idea is not to dissimilar to Ollie’s own goal and reasoning behind joining the League in season 3. In both cases, his inherent goodness couldn’t let people be treated as disposable play things and forced him to reassert both Oliver Queen and Hood Guy. The repetition might seem a bit needless, but Oliver’s declaration of self and his intentions to fix things his way was both a powerful moment and one for the show to demonstrate how far it’s come since season 3. Oliver is smart enough to know that just trying the old ways again won’t work. How he goes about changing things, given the world of violence he exists in, should be interesting and fraught if the flash forwards are any indication.
3. Curtis Undercover
Echoing the motif of breaking cycles, Curtis initially resisted being pulled back into one despite ARGUS orders. It also gave us some nice Curtis and Diggle time, which is a mostly novel pairing. Much like Oliver, Diggle plays to an inherent Terrific quality within Curtis to get him back in the game and helping people.
Reintroducing ARGUS has a major player has mostly been a good thing. With Diggle and Layla we get some Mr. and Mrs. Smith and with Curtis things approach the old Get Smart in terms of tone and gadgetry. It’s just nice seeing the show give Curtis something to do and recognize his own world within the larger Team Arrow dynamic. He was pretty much the last Team Arrow member that didn’t get a spot light on how they were dealing without the mask.
Where this shadowy ARGUS thread goes is unclear. Arrow and the DCWverse in general have a complicated (some could say hypocritical) relationship with institutions and authority. Their vigilante activates disobey said authority and they often find themselves co-opted or working within the very institution their masked presence defies. This show, and most of them, tend to have a more solid respect for the local authority as opposed to something more on the Federal level like ARGUS.
4. Prison Break? Maybe not
I’m pretty sure Captain Cold is still technically dead on Earth-Arrow, and if Wentworth Miller had signed on it likely would’ve gotten out. Maybe busting Ollie out of prison from two guys who know a thing or two about getting out of prisons wasn’t going to work out after all. Talia and Ollie were inches away from freedom and Ollie decided to stay and honor his agreement, which will hopefully be changing soon.
Continued belowStill with a couple of episodes before the Elseworlds crossover, how the show gets Ollie out of prison hangs over things. We did get our first promo for the crossover, which appears to explain how he’ll be getting out of Slabside: Freaky Friday shenanigans! Also the font used was reminiscent of Batman ‘89
5. Man that place should be shut down
I’m no constitutional scholar or lawyer, but I’m pretty sure being subjected to mad science experiments in a secret prison within a prison is a violation of multiple rights. How that could be used to void his conviction, I do not know. Didn’t metahuman fight club, and other exculpatory evidence, help Barry out of Iron Side? This appears to be the angle of the next episode “Due Process” which also appears to be a big court episode for Laurel E2!
