Arrow S02E18 – Review

By: Marc Guggenheim & Drew Z. Greenberg (story)

The Story: Have you seen this girl? If so, call the Arrow on his encrypted phone line.

The Review: When Slade swore revenge against Ollie, you assumed he was seeking retribution equal to the suffering he believed Ollie caused him—an eye for an eye, appropriately enough. By that calculation, and factoring in Shado’s death, you expected this meant the death of all of Ollie’s loved ones. But we’ve seen since that Slade’s vengeance is nothing so simple. He’s had ample opportunity to kill everyone in Ollie’s orbit since he came to Starling City, yet he’s held back every time.

Of course, Slade has changed objectives since the island. In “Three Ghosts”, he promised anew, “I am going to tear everything [Ollie] cares about away from him. Destroy those who choose to follow him. Corrupt those he loves.” Ollie dies only after “he has lost everyone and everything he values[.]” It’s a psychological breakdown Slade wants for Ollie, not unlike the one he’s experienced since the dual trauma of being injected with the Mirakuru and losing Shado.*

He pretty much succeeds in this episode, although his victory isn’t total just yet. Since Ollie returned from the island, he has shown a tougher, more ruthless persona than what he left the city with. But after kidnapping Thea, Slade manages to revert Ollie to that weak, pleading boy-man who first got stranded on the island. This is not the Arrow, man of action; this is Ollie, giving up the game and begging Slade for an end. And that’s exactly what Slade wants: to prove that an arrow in his eye hasn’t changed his and Ollie’s relative positions of dominance.

Slade accomplishes more than that, however. Without actually killing Thea, he takes her away from Ollie by revealing one of Ollie’s biggest secrets. Alasdair Wilkins of A.V. Club makes a good point that Thea has no reason to believe anything her captor says; the fact that she stays at all to listen to him reveals how fragile the trust Ollie’s rebuilt with her since his return really was. And the thing is Ollie has an even bigger secret outstanding; even if Thea somehow manages to get over this latest shock, she still has an electrocution coming.

Ollie’s been emotionally stricken, but Slade has opened several fronts in his war. The reveal of Isabel Rochev as one of Slade’s lackeys and her snaky manipulation of Ollie to sign over control of Queen Consolidated to her is one of the better left turns in the episode, as much an attack on the Arrow as on Ollie. Ollie’s violent reaction to Isabel’s betrayal has little to do with his actual attachment to the company. Ollie has never viewed Queen Consolidated beyond a means to maintain his other activities and get around some logistical barriers. Its loss definitely hampers his ability to counter new threats from Slade and elsewhere, and he can no longer use it as a refuge for his team.

With this whole kidnapping fiasco, Slade has taken some direct shots at Ollie, but there are a few innocent casualties as well. Roy’s resignation from Team Arrow is a natural consequence of Ollie’s blunders, though not really significant from an overarching perspective. Having only just joined up six episodes ago, his integration with the team is not so deep that his departure stings. In some ways, his leaving Ollie is more beneficial than sticking by him. Roy is still Slade’s enemy first; going off on his own throws an unpredictable variable into Slade’s Ollie-centric plans.

More devastating to Team Arrow is Quentin’s arrest for failing to reveal the Arrow’s identity. Quentin has definitely added new flavor to the team’s dynamic with his crusty personality, but he’s also been an invaluable resource by working inside the legitimate authorities. With him gone, the team now faces threats from the good guys as well as the real villains. But are Starling’s finest really the good guys anymore? We know some of them are acolytes of Brother Blood, and there’s suspicious timing in the way Quentin’s arrest comes just as the public is scrutinizing the police for releasing Slade (whom Quentin brought in) just hours before Thea confirms he was in fact her kidnapper. This arrest may be a reaction to the department’s embarrassment, but it could also be part of Slade’s bigger plans.

But as I said earlier, Slade hasn’t won the game just yet. He may have driven Thea away, but Ollie and Moira have also drawn closer from the experience. At the very least, Ollie recognizes how much of himself—his emotional vacillations, his occasional self-loathing, his well-intentioned secrets—comes from his mother. And at the end of the day, when all else is lost, Diggle and Felicity are there, which is a much-appreciated gesture from the show to Ollie’s original partners. Of course, unlike their teammates, Diggle and Felicity have few other motivations other than to assist Ollie (“Where else would we be?” Diggle says), but that makes their scene of loyalty no less a necessary bright spot in Ollie’s dark day.

Conclusion: Despite its many moving parts, the episode manages to keep all of it working well and together with great finesse.

Grade: A

– Minhquan Nguyen

Some Musings: * Maybe Ollie can end all this by killing himself, removing the object of Slade’s plans, but Slade is so far gone now that probably Ollie can’t take the risk that he’ll die and Slade will destroy everything he loves anyway.

– I should just save time and permanently award Felicity for best line of each episode. “Well, I told a guy the truth and he got struck by lightning. To be fair, [it] probably won’t happen again—statistically.”