Jessie Robertson reviews the third episode of Arrow season 6…
It’s hard to say where Arrow is going these days but I kind of like that about it; on The Flash, we have “The Thinker” sitting in his chair, looking like a rejected Matrix character, with 12 metas waiting out there; it feels very similar to last year’s history of events leading to Iris’ death. No, Arrow deals with situations as they come up and even if there are things brewing that are long-standing , you still have no clue where the show is going. I say that as Diggle becomes the Green Arrow, solves his nervous tick issue, which would seem to play out over a while, then we find out why. But, back to that later…
There’s not just Diggle’s hand issue; while on the field, he doesn’t show that same split second decision-making Oliver did and Rene calls him out on it. We don’t know again until episode’s end, but it seems whatever John is injecting himself with may have more side effects than he first thought. Dinah tries to come to his defense, being sort of a tough love support system for John these days (which begs the question, where is Lyla in all this?), but Rene , now being the voice of reason somehow, with his spiffy new costume, decides to take matters into his own hands and asks Oliver back, in what I mean is he called him “Hoss”, and asked him to come back.
Meanwhile, Oliver, for the first time since the opener of season 4, seems to be trying to put a normal life together; he’s doing Mayoral things, he’s cooking breakfast for William and even putting back the pieces of his long dead romance with Felicity, who is also quite distracted with her new startup she’s working on with Curtis (Did we see “Oracle” on her whiteboard?) but seems to have, off-camera, made peace with the fact Oliver’s a father now and even is okay with being back in that fold. I think I would like to have seen more of how these two sort of came back together, but their chemistry is so dynamite, it works regardless. The kid playing William is always going to have a tough draw of not seeming like a brat but also, he should be a total brat for this rich stranger who is all of sudden his Dad. It’s an interesting dynamic and good to see Arrow sticking with it and using William ongoing; it brings out a different side of Oliver, as we see this week; he can’t connect with him over school work (he was a ‘D’ student) but he is willing to find out how; he goes to Felicity, earnestly, and wants advice on how to help. It’s a good scene and even with all the “Ollicity” backlash a few years ago, those two are in a different spot now and I look forward to seeing where that relationship progresses.
I don’t want to dive deep into our villain of the week who has merely been outplaying the cops and Team Arrow with essentially flash grenades, but it’s a good first test for John as the Green Arrow and I love how something so simple as the fact that he doesn’t use a bow is dealt with in a very real fashion; they simply have to make something John can use that looks like can. The pep talk with Oliver (he knows when a hero is brooding) is also well done, simple and after seeing the final scene, you wonder how much is getting through to John and what are these injections doing to him?
Rating: 8/10
Jessie Robertson
