‘Arrow’ season 3, episode 21 review: Oliver’s new role ties everything together
How depressing was tonight’s “Arrow” episode to everyone else? In it, what we more or less saw was Oliver Queen becoming a very bad dude, Nyssa nearly dying on more than one occasion, and also the idea of the Alpha and Omega being used to destroy all of Starling City. (Of course, this had to come back eventually!)
What we will give “Al Sah-Him” credit for is at least tying up some loose ends. We have been wondering just why in the world the entire Hong Kong story mattered this season, and much of it seemed to be as a way to bring us to where Oliver’s relationship with Maseo was explored, and that we knew exactly why we were meant to care about the bioweapon. Apparently, Ra’s wants his new protegee to use it to destroy his entire hometown. Also, he wants him to marry Nyssa rather than kill her, which is completely random and somewhat feels like an afterthought. Also, it feels somewhat like Ra’s is breaking his own rules simply because he wants to.
Oliver tonight also nearly killed Diggle as a result of Ra’s taking him through a version of brainwashing that causes him to become completely disinterested with the life that he knew. Apparently, Felicity and Thea (dressed reasonably close to a hero tonight) both got to him on a certain level, but his longtime partner-in-fighting-crime could not. At one point, he kidnapped Lyla and nearly made a move to kill her.
Substance-wise, there really was no B story tonight, and not that much actually happened beyond what we have already said. There was no Ray Palmer, no Captain Lance, and no real sense of how the city is even coping after the Arrow was supposedly killed off. What we got was that the remaining Team Arrow members are trying to move on, but want to believe the best in Oliver. That just may not be possible right now. There’s going to be a way to break him in time, but the show is making us work for it. Grade: B-.
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