Following the EMP blast at the end of last week’s episode, we were treated to a bottle episode where Oliver and Felicity found themselves trapped in the bunker with a limited supply of air, their time cut even shorter part way through the episode when one of their attempts to break out ruptured a gas pipe, threatening to suffocate them even sooner. As the rest of Team Arrow rushed to get them out, once they had figured out where they were and what happened, Oliver and Felicity got to talk about their feelings for 40 minutes.
Even the flashbacks were tied into this Olicity story. Instead of touching on the Russian storyline, we were instead shown a night 11 months ago, sometime after Oliver and Felicity had broken up, where they hooked up one last time after a bittersweet night in the bunker with Chinese food and wine. I frankly, didn’t care because all it did was show that the Felicity and Oliver SHOULD NOT be together but it somewhat paralleled what was happening this week, with talk about their trust issues.
Something that really stood out to me though, something the writers clearly thought was really clever, was that the implant in Felicity’s spine which helps her walk also got fried by the EMP, so Felicity was confined to her wheelchair for most of the episode, with Oliver carrying her around during the more difficult parts of their escape. In the end, Curtis just re-jigged the implant so she could walk again and I couldn’t help but feel what a total slap in the face the whole thing was to wheelchair users, especially ones that had at one time hoped Felicity could have been the new Oracle. I mean jeez! Disability as plot device? That you literally turn on and off within the space of one episode. In the end Oliver’s big reveal to Felicity was nothing we didn’t know already. He wants to shield those he cares about from becoming like him.
There were more interesting things taking place outside the bunker as Quentin had to convene an emergency meeting at City Hall as word was out that Star City’s District Attorney was a serial killer and every defence attorney in the city was looking to get their client’s conviction overturned. This could potentially be an amazing story line for Arrow, but with only 3 episodes left, I doubt we’re going to go too far into that.
Diggle still had major issues with Lyla signing off on unsanctioned black ops as the head of ARGUS, but their domestic strife seemed to be cleared up relatively easily when Lyla presented Diggle which a list of every dirty mission she’s ever ok'd, on the provision there are no more secrets between them and that Diggle has to support Oliver in whatever he has planned, no matter how morally questionable. That last note seemed like Arrow is hinting that something may well go down within these last few episodes as Oliver does whatever he was to to stop Adrian Chase.
Speaking of Chase, whose plotting gave us this week’s story, by the end of the episode his true purpose for trapping Oliver in the bunker was revealed. He’s said many times he’s not going to kill him until he totally destroys him and those he loves and it looks as though he has successfully tracked down Oliver son William, supposedly living in secret under an assumed name, something that he gave away all too quickly when Adrian suggested he knew his father. Dumb move kid.
Written by Nick Whitney, ARROW Beat Writer -- Click to read Nick's posts
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