Oliver, against the advice of Felicity, leaves Star City to assist Lyla with breaking Diggle out of prison. I was genuinely excited for this as it seemed like we may finally get to see a version of the fabled Green Arrow: Supermax story that was scripted but eventually found itself languishing in film development hell and has been floating around the Internet ever since. What we got instead was Oliver dressed in all black sneaking around the cheapest prison set I think I've ever seen on TV. It still feels weird to say that the main character of Arrow, the actual Green Arrow's plot was the padding in this week's episode, even if I should be used to it by now. To the writer's credit it was fleshed out a bit with the flashbacks, that saw Oliver complete his initiation into the Bratva by infiltrating a Russian prison to extract information and kill a man in a somewhat interesting parallel to the modern day story. The biggest detail easily being how the Oliver of five years ago is getting closer and closer to becoming the killer he was back in season one. But what got me was that the rest of the team were left behind, something I totally missed in the promo images that I mistakenly thought made it seem like they were helping in the break out attempt.
You see, the real meat of this week's ARROW saw the New Team Arrow come together and shine in the absence of the Emerald Archer. Turns out Tobias Church wanted that goon to get caught at the beginning of the episode (so it wasn't much of a collar for them I guess?) because loot was rigged to blow once it was in the SCPD's lock up. Breaking up a nice bit on bonding between Quentin Lance and the New D.A. Adrian Chase, played by Season 5 newcomer Josh Segarra, something I was interested in as a sort of Gotham-Lite version of the relationship between Jim Gordon and Harvey Dent, Church proceeds to help himself to all weapons inside before making his move to wipe out Mayor Queen's Anti Crime Unit in one fell swoop. It was a neat trick, even a cheap one I should have seen coming as they pointed out how odd it was that Church would have one of his guys steal a regular piece of computer kit, available on the high street, but what can I say, I like cheap tricks.
Ragman Rory quit the team for all of 10 minutes, before a conversation with Felicity resolved their issues for now, thank God. Finding some sort common ground in the (survivor's) guilt over Havenrock, they agree to work together for the common good. Still, with mentions for Rory's father and grandfather having worn wearing the magic rags before handing them down all I was left thinking was “Will you please give these rags an origin episode?!” In a show about superheroes, that's what I was left thinking.
Saving the Anti Crime Unit from Church's onslaught, Ragman showed just how more powerful than the other's he is, making the decision for Wild Dog to stay behind to have a fist fight with Church seem so inane. Rene held his own against the bigger man for a while before getting captured, setting up next week's episode when, reunited with their leader and a newly freed Diggle, they attempt to get him back. There was a mention of Rene's dishonourable discharge at the start of the episode, so perhaps finally, we're going to get the Wild Dog back story I've been so craving, possibly with his flashbacks taking the place of Oliver's?
Also, I want to bring up one last point, albeit what will seem like even more Curtis bashing. Mr Terrific got a knife in the back, which he then seemed to just walk off. This simultaneously made him look like the weakest member of the team and a Mary Sue who can't be kept down all at once. Unless that injury leads to some kind of character development that makes him harden up, or leads him to implant some of those sweet bio-augmentation devices from last season into himself, I don't even know what to think. Please CW, make Mr. Terrific terrific again.
Written by Nick Whitney, ARROW Beat Writer -- Click to read Nick's posts
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