Jessie Robertson reviews the fifth episode of Arrow season 7…
As Oliver says, keeping the monster in the shadows was not the solution.
The Good:
– You may call me a real hater, but the only value I saw Talia bringing this week, was her mentioning the word “Gotham.”
– My focus was on ARGUS spycraft; it continues here and I think this week’s segment is just as strong as last week’s. We have Curtis as the focus, being put in a situation he’s not entirely comfortable with, posing as a fake Dr. trying to find a connection to Lyla’s black ops investigation into ARGUS. He’s really not happy about the situation, and he gives a strong performance explaining why: he lost his marriage, saw a friend nearly die for the vigilante life. Diggle swoops in and does what Diggle does best: gives a long speech preachin’! But, it seems to work. Mr. Terrific is not just a moniker; this kid has 14 PHD’s (how’d he have time for that?) and was an Olympic athlete; he’s a hero in so many ways. Great stuff.
– Oliver’s beard.
– Liking Dinah more and more; getting her away from that depressed state after losing her altered boy friend and giving her purpose and making her the narrator of her own story instead of just a side character in it, she plays really strong.
– Cool idea for a fight scene with Oliver and Talia beating up those guards in full riot gear but it went a little over the top.
The Not So Good:
– Slabside is just boring, honestly. Hold on, they can roam around Level 2? And Dr. Parker? Of course this prison comes equipped with a nutso evil psychiatrist who’s got years and years of records of him doing evil shit to people and they’re buried in a file room (I do love a good file room scene and this one’s not bad!). And every guard is just a low level thug. Nothing original here.
– I’m sorry, Talia was just not interesting to me. There’s more Oliver dealing with his duality here, but in a world where your father has killed and been killed over and over again, is it that devastating or surprising someone like Oliver would finally get the job done? I thought introducing Nyssa to this show first kind of took some uniqueness away from Talia when she debuted but I like the idea of her training Oliver, she’s just not around enough for us to be drawn in by her appearance like we are with Nyssa, who has deep history with a lot of Arrow main characters.
– Still not going in on the Felicity- Laurel friendship, or the fact Laurel is just a lawyer now! With no training!
In other news – the Elseworlds promo shown tonight was amazing!!! Oliver and Iris end up together in this reality but Oliver remembers his old one? I don’t know if I’ve been this excited about a crossover before.
Rating: 7/10- the show really needs to give us more; I like the side spy stuff but Slabside is not really doing it for me like I hoped it would at the conclusion of last season.
Jessie Robertson
