Oliver and Felicity look for a magical solution to defeat Darhk; vengeance-driven Diggle gets a lead on Andy’s whereabouts and heads off to confront his brother; Alex takes Thea on a vacation that quickly turns into a nightmare.

Arrow is an interesting one with this episode that feels like a hell of a lot packed into one episode. We finally get a better idea of Darhk’s plan. Oliver and Felicia go on a quest. Diggle confronts his brother. Finally Thea gets kidnapped.

All of that is packed in an hour as the season begins to wrap up for the show.

It’s a decent episode in that even with everything going on, it still feels like all of that was all given enough time to develop and play out. And there’s actual development and the decisions aren’t idiotic!

I will say though, isn’t Andy wearing a bullet proof vest? Where did he get shot!?

Darhk’s plan feels a bit too reminiscent to the first season, but this episode moves a hell of a lot of plot points along.

 

Overall rating: 7.1

Oliver and the team struggle to come to terms with Laurel’s death, especially Diggle, who is overwhelmed with guilt for choosing to believe Andy had changed. Meanwhile, Lance refuses to believe his daughter is dead and asks Nyssa to help bring her back.

Arrow deals with the ramifications of Laurel’s death in an interesting way bouncing back and forth between the past and present and using Oliver’s “death” as a way to compare it.

What’s really interesting with the episode is that it does a decent job of checking off a lot of the questions we the viewers might have. Can they resurrect her? Did she really die? What about all of the doctors and nurses who know?

The writers do a decent job of checking off those boxes and answering those questions quite well. All of my questions were answered at least.

I can’t say I agree with the death or think it was a good idea, but they at least wrapped things up pretty well in that department.

After a rather poor last episode, this one is better at least in the quality when it comes to its framing of the story.

Overall rating: 7.4

Oliver and Diggle learn that Merlyn plans to break Darhk out of prison. Meanwhile, Laurel gets a surprising offer and Felicity has a heart-to-heart talk with Curtis.

Arrow is just ok as the episode just builds and builds until the last twenty minutes in a when sort of way, not an if. The episode is about Darhk regaining his power and getting out of prison.

The episode is rather blah overall probably due to the lack of surprise in how things would turn out, especially when it comes to the twists, turns, and betrayals. None of it is shocking and things feel rather choreographed to a point that just kills more of the emotional pull of it all.

The episode really is more about Oliver and Laurel than anything else and that’s clear in the final five moments of the series. It’s a solid moment, and one that does a good job being tied back to Oliver’s time in the past that the season has been flashing back to.

But, while most of the episode has been blah, it’s those last five minutes that pack a punch as a character is fridged to drive the plot forward. Yes, we finally know who is in the grave from earlier in the season. While we got to the moment sooner than I thought, and there’s some emotional heft to it, it’s still using a female character’s death to drive the narrative of other characters.

While I had hoped the mysterious death would have been something more, the series continues to crap on female characters to drive the male characters’ narratives.

Overall rating: 6.1

Brie Larvan breaks out of jail and turns up at a Palmer Tech threatening to kill everyone unless she gets the bio-chip that is implanted in Felicity’s spine.

Arrow has some high points in this episode and lots of low points as well. Again, we see a show that has a lot of potential and doesn’t quite live up to any of it.

The episode basically has some of Team Arrow’s women playing damsels in distress running from Larvan’s bees.

The big thing in this episode is Curtis who takes on a bigger role and I guess is now officially part of Team Arrow after he discovers everyone’s secret. He’s a nice addition and his enthusiasm and excitement is the highlight of the episode.

What’s not so good is again taking a series issue that can and should be explored but not diving much into it. In this case it’s Larvan’s motives as to why she’s attacked Felicity and wants the technology. There could be a great discussion about the medical treatment of inmates, or the population as a whole, or about the cost of medical treatments, or how it takes so long to get medical treatments into the market. Any of these would be perfect to discuss and none are. We basically get a thief who wants to steal a chip. Great opportunity for discussion and not used to its potential.

The episode is really about Curtis and getting him as part of the team. Hopefully we see him more as he’d be a solid replacement for Felicity. I’m sure we’ll see more and an eventually twist to Curtis’ more known comic book persona.

The episode isn’t bad and is fun in many ways. But, when you think about what it does, it’s pretty thin.

Overall rating: 6.8

Following the events of William’s kidnapping, Darhk has become less powerful, but Carrie Cutter, a.k.a. Cupid, has emerged into Star City to cause chaos on the city and the Green Arrow.

Arrow is a bit of a mixed bag as Oliver and Felicity deal with the fallout of Felicity calling off the wedding. It’s all done with Cupid running around to cause chaos for those in love and getting married… you can easily see where this is going, and in many ways it’s very bad.

Instead of having an adult conversation a sham wedding is done to draw out Cupid and Oliver bares his soul to Felicity at the fake wedding instead of having a conversation before. It’s beyond a shitty situation and really crap writing in many ways. It dumps on Felicity in a bad way and puts her in a spot that’s unfair to the character.

In a season that had some solid possibilities as far as character development when it comes to Felicity, the writers cut that short by quickly having her walk again with only an episode or two to reflect on the situation, an insult in many ways to the character and viewers. Here too we see that sort of process and direction for the character.

It’s been a weird season, and this episode makes it clear it’s not as weird as it is lazy at times, and when it comes to Felicity, the season is beyond insulting. This may be a low point for the season, it’s definitely just a bad episode all around.

Overall rating: 6.1

Oliver calls in his old friend Vixen for help in fighting Darhk, while Thea has a heart-to-heart talk with Malcolm.

Arrow dives in to Ollie’s kid as they go after Darhk to get him back while Malcolm continues to do what Malcolm does. The episode has some good and has some bad as action sequences at times fall rather flat.

But tonight’s big thing is the live action debut of Vixen. The character made her debut in The Flash/Arrow world in an animated webseries, but here she is in the flesh played by the same actress who provided the voice of the animated character Megalyn Echikunwoke.

Echikunwoke is much better than the actress for Hawkgirl, but her acting still is a little dull at points, especially in her final speech with Ollie about his son. She is nice to see on the screen and out of all of the action was the best of the bunch this episode.

The episode also pivots things a lot too. There’s Ollie and Felicity’s relationship where he tells her the truth. We learn who really kidnapped William, which is a bigger picture game that’s a big question mark. And there’s just Ollie figuring out what it is to be a father, which hopefully the series explores more down the road.

The episode has good moments. It has bad moments. But it also has some interesting ramifications going forward that will hopefully be used in the best way. If the ending is any indication, looks like they’ll be using the revelations here for some solid effect.

Overall rating: 7.1

Oliver and the team uncover HIVE’s plan to take out Team Arrow once and for all. With HIVE’s next attack imminent, Lance wonders if Donna is safer without him in her life.

Arrow is a bit mixed tonight with a balance of Team Arrow’s personal life and the superheroing. There’s an engagement party, a Mayoral debate, and then trying to stop HIVE. It’s all mixed in together in a weird episode that bounces all over the place in quality.

The episode comes back to that whole protecting your loved one theme, which gives huge hints as to who will be in the grave down the road.

There’s some action, and a lot of humor. The big thing is things are getting a bit clearer as to the whole Mayoral race and why it’s important, though the big picture as to why the bad guys are doing what they’re doing isn’t super clear. As a whole, things feel like we’ve seen it before.

I think my biggest problem with the episode is it packed in WAY too much. It’d have been stronger just focused on the debate or just focusing on the engagement party. Doing the two, things felt a bit thin and the focus was all over.

This is another bridge episode, not good, not bad, it just is. But, the good moments here are at least really good, so there’s that.

Overall rating: 7.3