‘Arrow’ season 5, episode 12 review: Rory’s decision; the truth behind Susan Williams
Whenever Oliver revisits a certain part of his past on “Arrow,” one thing has a tendency to happen as a result of it: We see things blow up in his face. This is something that we had a chance to see when he went back to the island, and on tonight’s episode “Bratva,” we had a chance to see the second present-day appearance in Russia.
The mission this time around actually had a little bit more to do at present with John Diggle than it did with Oliver Queen. After all, look at it this way: General Walker, the frequent target of John’s frustrations and the reason why he was locked away in the first place, was in the area with his team of uber-bad people. Therefore, the Original Team Arrow with some help (namely, Dinah Drake, Curtis, and Rory) all took off overseas in order to take care of him. This meant a reunion with Oliver’s old friend Anatoly, who at first didn’t look all that thrilled with him to be there; luckily, eventually he did start to show more of a willingness as he offered up an opportunity to use some of his men in a fight to ensure that he was taken down once and for all.
Diggle did get his revenge on Walker, and as a result of his capture, we got a moment with the original team that we’ve been looking forward to: A toast! Hopefully, this is the beginnings of some more great things to come for the three.
Felicity’s dark road continues – Remember last week, when we started to get a further sense of her interactions with the Helix group? Well, this time around we saw her use some of those inroads further in an effort to get to Walker — no matter who it hurt in the process. The funny thing here is that Felicity in season 5 is somewhat similar to Oliver in season 1, interested in punishment and helping out those who are good, no matter what happens to people who were bad.
It was Rory who first called her out on this, and if that wasn’t enough, we then also saw him rat her out to Oliver. If he wasn’t trying to do the right thing, it’d be easier to be mad at him.
Meanwhile, back in Star City – Thea is still absent (where is she, by the way?), and with her gone Rene found himself this week taking on the role of counselor to Quentin Lance. He had just left rehab, and decided to face Susan Williams and the city head on for his first-ever interview. It feels fair to say that he needed a little bit of advice in this department, no? Wild Dog ironically helped him be a little less wild, as he calmed him down at first before later getting him to realize that this was not the right way for him to be in the event that he wanted to make it out of the interview unscathed. He could blow up on her if she brings up Laurel — she was probably going to. It turns out that Rene had a deeper history with Lance, as it was an encounter with him as a child that kept him from going to a bad place.
When Oliver returned to Star City at the end of the episode … let’s just say that he and Susan finally got a little closer. They slept together for the first time, but this does not necessarily equate to him being willing to talk about the island or what he went through there. Probably smart, since he knows her job and what she’d do with that information of she found out about it.
The events in the end – Rory had risked his life with the rags in order to stop a blast in Russia; unfortunately, in the process doing this with the rags caused them to lose their effect. This led to Rory leaving for now, since he had to find a way to get the power back.
Oh, it just so turns out that Susan is really working her own angle much more than she is interested in being with Oliver — thanks to some well-placed information, she was able to determine that he probably is the Green Arrow. Grade: B+.
Want to see what’s coming up on “Arrow”? Then be sure to head over here, since that’s where you can get a preview for a big Wild Dog episode airing on the network next week. (Photo: The CW.)