Oliver Queen ventures outside of the confines of Starling City this week, as Arrow heads to the mysterious isle of Corto Maltese. But what does this classic DC location have in store?
Bringing Thea home is Oliver’s main goal this week, and coincidentally the main focus of the episode. This does mean we don’t see Oliver suiting up as the Arrow this week, but there’s still plenty of action to be had. Diggle and Roy go with, the former due to an A.R.G.U.S agent going dark and the latter to make up for past failings. Felicity doesn’t have much to do this week, and exits at the end to appear on the next Flash episode.
Laurel gets quite a bit of development though. She tries her hand at vigilanteism, it doesn’t end well. What makes the development interesting is that she goes to Oliver and asks him to teach her to fight. Oliver refuses and she goes to boxer Ted Grant. With the photos recently surfacing of actress Katie Cassidy in Black Canary garb appearing online, it should be fun to see where this thread leads.
This week we also see a lot more of Thea and Malcolm. It plays like a dark parallel of Oliver’s training. While Malcolm clearly cares a lot about Thea, there is no denying that he’s still creepy. Having said that, any amount of screen time is good at the moment as he barely appeared in season 2. It’s also nice to see Thea in a place where she’s more confident in herself and able to kick butt after a few months of training. They also manage to sum up Malcolm Merlyn in one statement: “Pain is inevitable. Suffering, is optional.”
What makes this episode particularly interesting is that the action takes place during daylight. Naturally Diggle’s story-line winds up in a shoot out, meaning Oliver and Roy have to step in. It’s a good chance for Oliver to have an action scene (post-island) that shows how much the work the actor does for himself. Also there’s a nifty brick-joke where Oliver has to explain to Roy that they can’t take their bows through customs. The pay off is hilarious.
It’s also worth noting that Arrow is two episodes behind The Flash. While this is the case, it’s ironing out the time line. if my calculations are correct Felicity’s visit to Central City should be on next week. While we’re still a few weeks off it’s nice to see the universe of both heroes connecting.
Diggle’s plots seem to get a bit samey as we go along. Some sort of mission takes him out of Starling City, usually after someone who winds up warning him that Amanda Waller is evil. It gets a tad repetitive given that we found out a long time ago that she’s ruthless and very much into her job. This week’s antagonist is fairly one note, which does lead to the detriment of the episode because it’s this plot-thread that gave us our action scenes this week.
What really boosts this episode forward is the emotional drama. Oliver of course has the conflict of how to convince Thea to come home without destroying their relationship by telling her just how much he’s been keeping from her over the course of the series. Laurel heads up the second wave with her torment about hiding Sara’s death from her father starting to surface. Him finding out, is of course inevitable. Added to that, the appearance of Nyssa at the end of the episode demanding to know where Sara is, it’s only a matter of time before all kinds of hell breaks loose.
How do you think Nyssa will react when Oliver tells her what happened to Sara? Do you think Laurel can live up to the Black Canaray legend? Let us know in the comments below…
