Jessie Robertson reviews the seventh episode of Arrow season 7…
I felt like this was an episode I just wanted to get through… and that’s never a good thing.
The Good:
– I don’t have a lot for this column actually tonight; Kirk Acevedo (Diaz) got a whole Thanksgiving meal out of chewing the scenery tonight, mingling around the prison, inciting riots, ripping electrical cords out of the wall and generally just being a psycho getting off on torturing Oliver. I would say he’s enjoyed himself immensely on this show.
– Michael Jai White (Turner), I have knocked before on his acting, and I felt like he came off very generic through the first half tonight but then I saw little shades of things I liked. First off, this guy is a great fighter and stunt man during the show; his stuff looks very real and very good. I liked his explanation to Oliver of how he used to see the world (only black and white) now he notices the gray.
– Oliver’s little buddy, the continually getting creepier one, call me crazy, but in the infirmary scene, I got the feeling this guy could be a Joker-ish villain for Oliver going forward, not to say he’s Oliver’s main enemy, just that he’s a bit nuts and could be an interesting rival, a different kind of one going after Oliver. All of his main villains have been calculating, plotting; this could be a change of pace, we’ll see, way out on a tree limb there.
– This was a contained episode; that sort of storytelling has always called out to me. The only release from being inside Slabside was Oliver leaving at the end. It did start to feel suffocating at certain points, which I like, as it gives you that feeling that you are in the prison along with them.
The Bad:
– Diaz’s grandstanding had come to the end. As I said above, I felt like I was just waiting for this to end, however that would happen. That it came down to the two of them just brawling, and Diaz stabbing Oliver, knocking him into his own cell and making grand comments about Felicity’s state of mind all felt like exposition to build upon what’s coming up in the rest of the season, and the flash forwards, not so much a finale to his storyline. I mean, he gets stabbed with half a pair of scissors and he’s down for the count. This dude survived a Canary Cry into the harbor! It felt so anti climatic and I kept thinking; what kind of statement would it have made for the rest of Team Arrow to be the one that puts him out without Oliver’s assistance? That would be a strong statement, but they couldn’t do that.
– There’s just a lot during this episode that didn’t feel like you were in the middle of a prison riot. They upped their game on makeup and effects, no doubt. And the cafeteria scene with the guards strung up looked like it could go Cable TV level violence, but it’s kind of like, we’ve seen them go this route before; Oliver’s fought tougher odds; even he didn’t look worried; I mean he walked in on 30 guys with a pillowcase of soda cans! And they beat up like 10 guys in that last scene; was that it? And where was the 50 guards on duty they mentioned? The prison just felt really small like they were in the same 3 rooms and hallways the whole time. I don’t think it came off that great.
Okay, moving forward – Slabside as a story device, I was really excited about coming into season 7, but it immediately didn’t have the impact or weight or dirtiness I wanted it to; I mean, a crooked psychologist and some pissed off guards? But, we’re moving on.
Rating: 6/10
Jessie Robertson
