Jessie Robertson reviews the fourteenth episode of Arrow season 7…
Arrow, as it’s wont to do, had about 1 million things going on tonight: some worked and some fell flat. Let me finish off this bowl of Cinnamon Toast Crunch and try and make sense of it all…..
The Good:
Over the years on Arrow, the relationship between Diggle and Lyla has probably got about 1/4 of the time devoted to say, Oliver and Felicity, but there is a strength there, a bond there. Tonight’s mission, which I’ve liked so far, shows them getting dangerously close to finding “Dante”, the hidden dealer they’ve been searching for, as well as his or her inside ARGUS mole. The use of the Ghost Protocol (Suicide Squad lite) has been a dud, honestly; but they used it to tie into another storyline, that of Felicity.
The over-arching future storyline where Felicity is the villain keeps playing in very interesting ways to the storyline of the present and her near obsession with killing Diaz seemed to be the thing to put her on this path. Where these two intersect is in the climax of tonight’s exhaustingly stuffed episode. Diggle makes a callback no one remembers when Diaz and Dante both go rogue at a gala where murder and chaos ensued, when he knocks out Diaz, who’s held at gunpoint by Felicity, and reminds her he let Diaz go before in search of someone else and he would not do it again, when it comes to risking his family’s life (speaking of Oliver and Felicity, of course.)
Hold on, am I enjoying Felicity-Laurel? How did this happen? It’s a strange relationship by two people that almost seem isolated in their own worlds of the Arrow-verse: yeah, Felicity has Oliver but it seems there’s always something more pressing for him to do than to be at home, or Allah forbid, out on a date with his wife! Guess that could be hard now that he’s outed.
Our climaxes tonight were pretty shocking honestly; we get a micro cassette for William (millennials today probably don’t know what that is, much less in the future), Emiko apparently works for Dante and Diaz is…..wait for it…..dead!!! Are we that lucky? He’s at least severely burned. I shouldn’t be hard on Diaz; he’s not nearly so annoying when he’s a side character.
The Bad:
I’m struggling with Oliver and Emiko’s relationship; it feels like the easy route for them to both be Green Arrow and her play into the same mindframe he did in Season 1: I get the parallels but there’s something off with it. She just feels like another member of the team so far (even though she’s not).
Did Felicity really plan to blow up Diaz’s head with his bomb with her all powerful mega-tablet?
Felicity is pregnant….which makes sense but really brings us back to the very evident truth that they are not good parents. They’re pretty self absorbed, as in being heroes and saving people, not really taking kids to the museum or ball games. But, I guess not everyone has to be a great parent to be a parent. I feel like when baby Arrow gets here next season, or maybe season’s end, it will show up about 3 times and be pushed to the side again. Anyone remember baby John Jr.?
Tonight’s Episode – 7/10: Oliver and Emiko continue the search for her mother’s killer, but they see how to execute it in different ways; The Ghost Protocol is implemented again, this time as ARGUS narrows down Dante’s whereabouts and Felicity has a big secret that she hasn’t even told Oliver yet.
Jessie Robertson
