‘Arrow’ season 3 finale review: Did Malcolm Merlyn upstage final Ra’s al Ghul duel?

Tonight’s “Arrow” finale had a heavy weight under it, mostly because of the past few episodes sagging somewhat, and for Oliver Queen not exactly being that likable. This is a guy who left his friends to more or less die … though it turns out that it was all a part of a larger plan where he trusted Malcolm Merlyn and The Flash to a certain extent to get the job done.

Eventually, this all led to the final showdown between Oliver and Ra’s al Ghul that was one for the ages. The two fought with swords while the bioweapon started to spread inside of Starling City, and all of this eventually led to the other members of the team stepping up and doing a little bit of work for the good guys. Exciting, no? If nothing else, it was fun to see everyone have a role.

Still, the inevitable death of the old Ra’s eventually paved the way for one of the biggest shockers of the night: Learning that it may have been Malcolm’s plan all along to do away with the old Ra’s so that he could get the power for himself. He now has the title and the entire League behind him, which is probably going to be valuable at some point in the future.

Now, we have to address the biggest problem: The writing of Felicity as of late. It’s a tough subject, since we’ve always liked the character, and rooted for her to be together with Oliver. However, her unilateral approach lately has become almost a little extreme, like her complete disregard for thousands of people in order to convince Ray to go and rescue him. He needed to convince her that this was not the right thing to do, and we still have a hard time thinking (cool as it was) that Felicity suddenly could control the Atom suit so well. We miss some of the fun Felicity that had some other interests and made Big Belly Burger trips with Diggle.

With that, it is nice to see the finale ending with Oliver and Felicity taking off to destinations unknown so that he can discover himself for a time. Meanwhile, Diggle and the other heroes of Starling City can take care of it for a time. Thea is now officially Speedy, the Hong Kong story seems to be completely severed, and we at least got a small taste of Damien Dahrk, even if he is still out there somewhere.

Overall, a very solid finale, even if we would say it is our least favorite of the third season so far. Also, Ray Palmer’s not dead people. His Atom suit testing is probably just a nice origin story to his ability. Grade: B+.

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