‘Arrow’ season 5, episode 5 review: Oliver, Felicity get honest as Prometheus claims a victim
Tonight, “Arrow” brought us quite a gut-punch in the death of Oliver Queen. Granted, they didn’t waste a whole lot of time before bringing him back to life. “Human Target” introduced us to the Christopher Chance character, who the Mayor used in order to fake his death long enough to ensure that Tobias Church would be thrown off the scent.
What was almost more impressive than Chance faking his own death, though, was the way he managed to handle Susan Williams, the prolific reporter who spent the majority of her time trying to take the Mayor down a notch — at least in that moment (more on that later). He made a pitch to her as Oliver that was compelling: Give him a month without hassle, and allow him a chance to prove that he can be a capable politician. If he can do that, then she’ll make life easier on him. Who knew that “Arrow” could be so smart politically? We also saw later in this sequence that Chance-as-Mayor and Thea discovered that one of the key councilmen in opposition of the rezoning had a business interest in keeping it from happening.
Basically, nobody manages to clean up Mayor Queen’s messes quite like his doppelganger. Basically, this was a way in which to further show us how good of a Mayor Oliver could be, if he was to get comfortable in his own skin. This whole charade managed to also bring us something more on the Felicity front, as Malone made it clear that he was dating Felicity.
Your Olicity update – Oliver confronted Felicity about this moment, and she claimed that she didn’t want to break the news to him until she knew it was “real.” Feels pretty real now, doesn’t it? We do think that Felicity’s actions showed that she still had feelings for Oliver given that she didn’t want him to think that she had moved on, but she has. We’ll see precisely where this goes.
The Tobias Church showdown – Tonight, we saw the end of the road for Church thanks to Chance and even Wild Dog, who embraced his fear and his past after giving Church the name of the Green Arrow earlier in the episode. Rick Gonzalez was tremendous in this episode; with Diggle’s help, Wild Dog was able to ensure to move on past the interrogation and his dishonorable discharge from the Navy. He didn’t stop Church directly, but he played a great role.
The inevitable end for Church came minutes later, when Prometheus showed up to murder him outright for violating the terms of their deal and committing his third strength. Given that Prometheus is clearly aware already that Oliver is the Green Arrow, that information didn’t mean a heck of a lot to him. What is important in closing this episode is the spread of information, given that Oliver now knows of Prometheus’ existence in the world, and it turns out that Susan Williams is also now aware of Oliver’s connections to chance in Russia thanks to some digging.
Overall – “Human Target” was a heck of a good episode with a lot going on and with a lot of great performances. Chad Coleman was excellent in his final scene with Prometheus, as for the first time you saw some of the fear in his eyes. There was more Olicity than we’ve seen so far this season, but reveals for many characters, and further proof that having a larger team can work, even if we don’t know if it will permanently. Grade: B+.
Next week – It’s time to do some digging on Prometheus! You can head over here to read up so much more about what to expect from “So It Begins.”