ARROW Season 4 Episode 4: 'Beyond Redemption' and Then Some



ARROW Episode 4 director, Lexi Alexander, is only the third female director on ARROW out of the 27 directors the show has had across its 73 episodes so far, with last episode's director Wendey Stanzler being the only woman to direct more than one episode. (It should be noted the next five episodes are also all directed by men.)

Alexander has made a name for herself on social media these last few years for being openly critical of Hollywood in its inability to hire women in top movie making roles, citing that women often don't even get considered when a man can do the job. Even though I'm not a fan of her cult comic book movie PUNISHER: WARZONE, I had high hopes for this episode as I knew if it fell flat that people would take it as proof the system works and female directors weren't cut out for the job. Thankfully, this episode was great! 

Firstly, though there were no really standout set pieces like say, the hallway fight from DAREDEVIL, the direction was fine. Where the episode really excelled itself was with its script. (I'd like to note here that the writing staff is much more diverse than the director pool on ARROW, with 44 episodes having at least one woman credited as writer.) 

Opening with the standard action scene, I was relieved to see it wasn't another Ghosts vs. Team Arrow fight. Instead, seeing a SWAT team take out some dealers before killing a pair of Star City detectives for getting in their way whilst trying to skim off the top of their bust's haul. We're told again and again how Star City is rotting away to its core so it was refreshing to see a criminal element other than the generic bad guys with their vague terror threats. Here you have a team of cops so disillusioned with how things are going in their city, desperate to provide for their families, they're willing to go to any lengths; even kill to cover their tracks to do so. Now granted, once this SWAT team break out the specialized anti-vigilante task force weaponry to take on Team Arrow, including Liza “Lady Cop” Warner's arm blades, they do kind of fall into the super villain of the week territory. But it's the resolution that marks this as a very different kind of conflict. 

Instead of simply being taken out by one of the heroes, Warner (played by Rutina Wesley) gets the drop on Green Arrow, sticking one of her blades into his back, only to be talked down by Captain Lance in an impassioned speech about his belief that their city was still worth fighting for. I knew the basis of the “Lady Cop” character was from a little known DC character and adding Lexi Alexander's previous credits to the mix has led people to theorize she may be re-imagined as a sort of “Lady Punisher” down the line. I now wait with baited breath to see what becomes of her later in the series. 

At Palmer Tech, Curtis and Felicity discover an encrypted final message from Ray, a sort of black box recording that may give a clue as to how he died (if the huge explosion wasn't enough evidence). Felicity's reluctance to listen to the message was frustrating as I want the Ray Palmer/Atom plot to progress, but understandable as she didn't want to hurt herself any more by opening up old wounds. Curtis' insistence that he would do anything to here his dead brother's voice one last time genuinely made me tear up and I so look forward to seeing a new hero with real emotional maturity out of him in the near future. 

But the award for “playing my heart like a cheap fiddle” goes to Paul Blackthorne as Lance, as he owned this episode, both with the already mentioned speech and with his reaction to his daughter's return from the grave. Laurel, choosing not to keep Sara's resurrection a secret from her dad takes him to see her in maybe my second favourite scene of the episode. Seeing Blackthorne, as Lance, switch from fear to joy and back again at the resurrection of his little girl and all that it's done to her was beautiful. (Also, shout out to having Caity Lotz back on our screens as Sara, even if she is nuts and had to be manacled in the basement.)

Meeting with Damien Dahrk to talk about the implications of her resurrection, Oliver and Felicity catch Lance in the act via an actually not completely clumsy plot device that actually makes sense in the context of this episode's investigation (turning on all the cop car dash cams etc). Leading to my favorite scene; Oliver confronting Lance. 

Oliver has taken a lot of shit off Lance, a lot of it deservedly so, but when confronting him about being involved with Dahrk he's finally able to admit he actually admires him and strives to be a better man because of him. Even his campaign to run for mayor was because he believed in Lance's position the city couldn't depend on a hero that skulked around in the shadows but needed someone to stand in the light. He's not just angry, he's heart broken. Lance's admitting that his involvement was only to keep Laurel out of harms way also tugged at my heart strings. Though a bit silly (she's an ass-kicking vigilante) you have to remember this man has lost so much; his youngest daughter (you know, until she got brought back from the dead), his wife, even his health. Which is why it was so great to see he didn't take Dahrk's advice and put down Sara like some kind of animal. 

In this week's flashbacks, we saw Oliver trick the soldier/slavers on Lian Yu, by convincing them he had killed one of the prisoners. A great plan undone literally minutes later when one of the soldiers discovers Oliver's comm device, hidden in a pack, in a bush, about a foot from where they were walking (heavy sigh). The flashbacks are the shows weakest point but interestingly in a season that's trying to be lighter and more “comic book-y,” Oliver is confronted by a self confessed “stone cold killer” as being the same. It does bode well if we start to see two completely different Oliver's emerge in this season, one on the island willing to kill and one five years later running for mayor. 

Upon a return visit to Lance after his speech (along with a gag about Oliver's seeming ease at which he can just get into people's locked homes) Oliver says that he is still going to fight for this city, both publicly as mayor and in secret as the Green Arrow, with Lance redeeming himself by aiding in bringing down HIVE from the inside. It was an overwhelmingly schmaltzy ending, in a best possible way, only tempered by Laurel's discovery that the deranged Sara has escaped her basement... 

A final note on the the most absurd thing in this episode: Cisco from THE FLASH is the biggest plot device in ARROW. New tech, suits and weapons? Building an all new, incredibly spacious and highly advanced Arrow lair under Oliver's mayoral campaign headquarters? Without anyone noticing? Without the hiring of many engineers and contractors to get it done? Come on! And for some reason all the computers are glitching. First Felicity's phone and now this? Hmmmm.

Written by Nick Whitney, ARROW Beat Writer