Firstly, Katrina Law’s Nyssa al Ghul’s story pick up with her escaping her captivity in Nanda Parbat, where she’s been languishing since we last saw her. With the new Ras distracted with the welfare of his daughter Thea, her loyal followers rise up to take control of the mountain stronghold. Travelling to Japan she encounters Rila Fukushima’s Katana, who is guarding a mysterious item known as the Lotus. As soon as Katana showed up on screen I pretty much had her pegged for death. After last week’s sudden death of Amanda Waller it’s clear that’s where DC is heading with all the Suicide Squad characters. As far as swan songs go, dying at the hand of the heir to the Demon’s Head is nothing to be sniffed at but we never get to see the outcome of their fight, as Nyssa instead tries to strike a bargain.
In this week’s flashbacks, whilst being tortured, Oliver is rescued by none other than Shado (Celina Jade), albeit in a hallucinatory vision, but for a split second, I thought that arrow to Baron Reiter’s chest was the real deal! Shado, who’s been dead since season 2, convinces Oliver that the only way out of the darkness he feels surrounded by is through, and that he has to confess to Taiana that it was he who killed her brother. Upon coming to, finding himself in his cell, Oliver does exactly that, leaving Taiana with the painful choice of having to trust her fate to the man who has both saved her life and betrayed her. ARROW writers please take note. This is how to create drama, not the old, “Let’s keep this a secret” ploy.
Back in (modern day) Star City, the identity of the black clad parkour practicing tech thief was well and truly spoiled by the CW’s constant promotion on the return on Colton Haynes as Roy Harper aka Arsenal, the flips being one of his characteristic traits. The Team soon learn that he’s under the control of a new hacker-terrorist who calls himself The Calculator (Tom Amandes), via an advanced contact lens that somehow controlled his mind. He’s being made to gather up the components for some kind of weapon, all leading to Palmer Tech’s latest company saving invention. Now, when Felicity bluffed her way into buying herself and Curtis Holt 6 months to come up with something to save the company, I was really hoping for some development towards the reinvention of Holt into the Mr Terrific character. And though we’ve seen some of the signature gadgets in his work shop, it turns out the company saving invention is a super cell battery? Bit disappointing.
The Calculator and Overwatch go head to head in an online game of cat and mouse, before Felicity uses her trump card of actually having a group of super heroes in the field to save the day, destroying the weapon he planned to use to cripple the city. Roy, reclaimed by the good guys, he dons his Arsenal gear once more to aid them, pulling off an amazing zip-line escape right out of the blast, as a way of paying for bringing this trouble into the Team’s lives.
But whilst Roy was temporarily back in the red as Arsenal, Thea was out as the ill effects of the Lazarus Pit were finally taking a toll. Merlyn revealed that if she won’t take a life then the magic that restored her will instead cost Thea her own. At one point, her original stab wound reappeared on her body before disappearing. After finding out that Dahrk’s powers somehow blunted this effect for a time, Oliver contemplates making some sort of deal with him, before being talked down by Merlyn himself. He makes it clear to Oliver that whilst they can do whatever they can to help Thea, they ultimately cannot go against her wishes. Which is an odd sentiment coming from the man who is a literal mass murderer who once brain washed Thea into killing someone for him as part of a master plan.
In her civilian role as head of Palmer Tech, Felicity successfully launches the new super cell battery (I mean, I guess I would like a phone battery that doesn’t need constant charging), to an audience of board members and presumably, press. But amongst them, sitting right next to her boyfriend Oliver no less, is The Calculator himself. He later approaches Felicity to congratulate her upon which it’s revealed he is none other than her long lost father! Now here’s a villain I want to see more of, which starting next week is apparently exactly what we’re going to get as the war between The Calculator and Overwatch moves into its next step. But here’s the thing; Do either of them realise who their opponent online really is?
Roy and Thea have a tearful farewell as Roy has to disappear again once. He did after all convince the world that he was the Arrow and that he died in a prison stabbing. It was a sweet moment of closure where despite literally telling each they wish they could spend their lives together, they knew it could never be. Will this be the last time we see Roy in ARROW? I suspect not, but for now it seems he’s gone for good. All in all, with all these guest characters turning up, it was a minor miracle no one died this week. But then, Thea takes a turn for the worse slipping into a coma.
With the doctors saying the prognosis doesn’t look good for her, Nyssa appears to Oliver at Thea’s hospital bedside, revealing at least she survived her encounter with Katana (Katana’s fate left ambiguous for now) and is in possession of the Lotus, an elixir created by the enemies of the League of Assassins designed to counteract the effects of the Lazarus Pit. She will give it to Oliver freely on one condition. He must kill Malcolm Merlyn.
Written by Nick Whitney, ARROW Beat Writer -- Click here to read Nick's posts.
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