Oliver receives an offer from Nyssa that is hard to refuse. Meanwhile, Thea continues to battle the blood lust; Malcolm steps in to help his daughter; and Laurel has a heart-to-heart talk with Nyssa.

Arrow shifts a hell of a lot around focusing heavily on the League of Assassins. The thrust of the episode focuses on Nyssa having a cure for Thea and she’ll only give it up if Malcolm steps aside so Nyssa can take over the League. There’s also some of Felicity getting to know her father.

The father stuff is rather predictable and as a plot unless there’s more to come, it seems like a bit silly thing to put in the show. Yes there were questions as to who her father was, but introducing him in this plotline just wasn’t a good use of the build up and reveal of who he was. Hopefully this isn’t the end of this story and I’m proven wrong down the road with more to come. As it stands though, it’s a big meh.

What’s interesting with the episode is where it goes with the League of Assassins. There’s a huge shift for the organization and Malcolm and you have to wonder the reason for those shifts behind the scenes, if there are any. Though, I will say where it went is not where I thought it was willing to go, it’s a dramatic change.

The episode has some decent action and a lot of the choreography issues I noticed in past episodes seems to be missing in this episode, which is great. Though some more sword fighting would have been great, there’s a bit too few scenes featuring it.

The episode is much better than the previous week, and there’s a pretty big shift I wasn’t expecting, so that’s great to see. What happened in the episode has me more excited than the episode itself if that makes sense. Overall, not bad just due to how much it shakes up the status-quo.

Overall rating: 7.3

The team faces off against a formidable villain nicknamed The Calculator (guest star Tom Amandes). Meanwhile, Nyssa (guest star Katrina Law) makes her move and Roy Harper (guest star Colton Haynes) returns to Star City.

Arrow is an interesting episode with a goofy plot about the threat of a gigalapse type event, or that occurring to the sity itself. There’s also Felicity attempting to deal with running her company. There’s Thea having some issues with her bloodlust. Finally, there’s the return to Roy.

The episode is better than last week, but not by much. The big focus of the episode is really to get Felicity, now with the horrible codename Overwatch, back in to the thick of things. The episode sees the heroes relying heavily on her knowledge and technical abilities pitting her head to head with The Calculator.

There has been a very noticeable issue this season of the action coordination with fight scenes, and generally the action, being heavily choreographed to the point it doesn’t feel natural at all and actually really stiff. This episode is a bit better in Roy’s return with his use of parkour creating a more natural flow to the movement. Juxtapose that when three of them are running from a building and they all stop and pivot at the same time. It’s not a natural scene at all.

The episode isn’t bad, it’s just not great. There’s some decent movement in some of the various plots, it’s what I’d call a bridge episode. It doesn’t stand on its own, but it does its job in moving the bigger plot along.

Overall rating: 6.9

Diggle mus learn to trust his brother Andy when an enemy of their wartime past, an agent of the criminal organization Shadowspire, visits Star City. However, Diggle learns more than he bargained for about their shared time at war.

Arrow focuses on the Diggle brothers in this episode which dives deeper in to their history together and gives some background on each. The episode also focuses on Felicity who is now confined to a wheelchair after being shot in the spine.

Both stories are decent enough, giving us a break from the Dahrk story that has been the focus of the season. The Diggle history is interesting showing each during their tour of duty together, which is ok in the action, but feels a little empty in some ways. Similar to the secret history we’ve seen about Oliver, this doesn’t quite click like that. That may be due it feeling like it came out of nowhere.

Felicity’s story at first feels like a second rate knock off of Oracle/Barbara Gordon in Batman. In many ways it is, and there’s even a joke about giving her the codename of Oracle. It wraps up a bit quickly, and would be much better to have been dealt with for longer in the season. There’s a great opportunity in this aspect of the character, and her dealing with her being in a wheelchair, and figuring out her role is handled WAY too quickly. Growth doesn’t happen that quickly.

The episode also has issues with the death of an important character. It’s another example of minority characters being offed in television shows adapted from comics. A very strange move, but I can only think this was done due to the character soon being in Suicide Squad, you can easily figure out who it is.

An episode with some good. An episode with a lot of bad.

Overall rating: 6.8

Oliver seeks revenge and goes on a brutal manhunt to find Dahrk, after dealing with the devastating consequences of Dahrk’s latest attack.

Arrow returns after a break diving right into things and adding a new bad guy, Anarky, to the mix. But, the episode revolves around two things, a grave that Oliver stands over four months from now, and also Felicity being injured and in the hospital.

The episode revolves around those two things. Oliver is focused on stopping Anarky/Lonnie, but also torn as Anarky/Lonnie could also help take care of Dahrk. That back and forth as to whether they should use a “villain” such as Anarky to stop Dahrk is interesting.

How far folks will go to stop Dahrk is the center of the episode. It drives Oliver’s vowing of revenge. It drives Diggle’s dealing with his brother. It drives how they handle Anarky. That questioning of how far heroes will go is interesting and it’ll be nice if they keep that theme going for the rest of this season.

The episode really bumps up the series for me with a nice twist and a new mechanic in who’s in the gave that drives a nice mystery. It’s a good set up for what’s to come.

Overall rating: 7.7

Oliver makes a bold move against HIVE when the city is attacked. Meanwhile, Malcolm checks in on Thea and leaves her with a warning; and things take a horrible turn when Damien Darhk retaliates in a brutal manner at Oliver’s mayoral holiday party.

Arrow has an interesting mid-season finale that has everything amped up a lot as Oliver is attacked at a political event. This creates a back and forth between Oliver and Damien that puts his friends, and innocents, in danger.

I’m still not 100% sure what Damien’s plan is, but there seems to be something similar about destroying and rebuilding the city, but I’m not quite sure. It’s interesting nonetheless and Neal McDonough as Damien is at least entertaining to watch.

Of note this episode, the fight scenes are a bit better with less stupid posing and awkward movement, so there’s that.

The episode ends with a one two punch that’s a bit too predictable, and also shows a stupidity of attackers that I never quite understand. What’s more interesting is a look into Damien’s life.

The ending was predictable in so many ways, but at least part of it was interesting. A mixed episode that was an improvement over last week’s ending of the two-part event, but not as good as previous episodes have been.

Overall rating: 6.9