Trust and betrayal

What They Say:
After defeating Ra鈥檚 Al-Ghul, Oliver鈥檚 decided to put the vigilante life behind him and retires out in the suburbs with Felicity. However when a new threat run by Damien Darke appears, Oliver must once again take up the hood. This time though he鈥檚 decided to take on the title of 鈥淕reen Arrow鈥?and vows to be the symbol of hope the old Arrow wasn鈥檛, but will Oliver be able to escape the darkness of his past so easily?

The Review:
Content(warning as portions of this review may contain spoilers):

So we’re now three episodes into this season and I’m still having trouble figuring out how the heck the producers think it’s “lighter”. I suppose put up against the overbearing edginess of season three it is, but that’s still not saying much. Needless to say the show veers largely into darker territory this week and coincidentally stumbles a bit because of it, but there’s also just enough strengths to the episode to help keep things afloat.

Firstly let’s start off with the “lighter” parts of the episode before getting into to the edgier stuff, which is in the main plot concerning Oliver and Diggle’s trust issues. 聽We’re back to the original trio (which is nicely pointed out) when it comes ton Star City happenings this week and it’s kind of refreshing in a sense, but Diggle’s still giving Oliver the cold shoulder while Oliver himself isn’t sure if it’s even worth trying to get his forgiveness at this point. Diggle continues investigating H.I.V.E on his own while Oliver deals with crime reports but their situations end up crossing when an agent from H.I.V.E. sends an assassin called Double Down after the team, leaving the two to just barely escape with their lives. This makes Felicity frustrated enough to force them to resolve their issues and finally lets Oliver in on what he knows about H.I.V.E. before they manage to beat Double Down.

Truth be told I’m a little annoyed they resolved the Oliver/Diggle tension this early in the season since it seems like something that could have lasted a couple more episodes without getting too grating, but it’s handled well enough that I don’t hold any serious complaints about it (aside from leaning a little too much in favor of Oliver but it’s what I’ve come to expect). Interestingly though, it also ends up bringing Holt into the whole mix faster than expected too as he at least finds out about Felicity’s secret when Double Down goes after them during part of the episode. I was expecting a bit of a wait on that front too, but in this case it’s probably for the best since half a season of him getting Felicity-d into indirectly helping with cases would have felt a little too repetitive of season one.

As for this week’s flashbacks. there’s once again not much in terms of thematic connection to what’s going on in the present but it’s at least more interesting than last week. We learn a little more about the current situation on the island as the soldiers are using their prisoners to produce some kind of product called “Slam”(guess something finally beat Mirakuru in terms of silly titles) and there’s also 聽a little more of Oliver at his lowest when he helps the soldiers torture one of the prisoners in an interrogation. However. his heroic traits still shine through a bit as he later aids another prisoner in escaping so it’s evident he hasn’t completely crossed the line just yet. Bit of a weird contrast but we’re at least starting to see more of a transformation into where his personality was at the start of season 1.

Onto the…other part of the episode, a whole lot goes down at Nanba Parbat and quite a lot of it is frustrating. Malcom and Nyssa both refuse Laurel’s request to resurrect Sarah for all the obvious reasons, but Malcom also finds out about Thea’s situation concerning the aftereffects of the Pit. Apparently the only way for her to fight off the bloodlust is to temporarily feed it by killing people, which is something she’s not quite willing to do. Malcolm on the other hand is more than willing and when he forces her into it, their relation only gets more strained. I’m glad the show’s not trying to completely turn Malcolm into a good guy but he comes off as particularly monstrous here and while that’d be fine if the show was making better use of that, it really just feels like the show’s way of stirring up more drama between him and Thea and there was already more than enough of that last season.

Laurel’s part in these events doesn’t fare any better as despite Nyssa’s repeated warnings she still wants go through with it and gets her wish when Malcolm decides to allow it on order to ease things over with Thea a little (don’t ask how that makes much sense, because I’m frankly not sure). Sarah’s resurrected, and while Laurel’s convinced her soul will quickly return, it’s pretty clear that won’t be the case and that she’s made a horrible, horrible mistake. Nyssa certainly thinks of it as such at any rate as it’s served to earn her wrath, which is certainly justified but once again feels like another way to shoehorn in drama. At least there’s some indication that Laurel’s realized the gravity of her decision towards the end though, so I’m hoping that won’t take too long to resolve. One bit of drama I’m actually looking forward to though is more 聽of the dynamic between Malcolm and Nyssa themselves since she’s still constantly looking at ways to kill him, and I her imagine destroying the Lazarus Pit might lead to him trying to kill her first. In the meantime though, it’s at least looking like we’ll get straight into the backlash of Sarah’s resurrection next week, but that also means more Lance family drama. Yay?

In Summary:

Arrrow’s supposed “lighter” season veers more towards the dark side this week as things get pretty heavy with the Nanba Parbat stuff. Unfortunently it leads to that part of the episode stumbling 聽bit into potential forced drama, but the resolution of the Oliver/Diggle relationship strain is enough to balance things out, even if it did feel a bit early for that to get fixed. When it comes to this whole Sarah resurrection thing though, that probably won’t go over as easy which could either be rewarding or frustrating. Hopefully it’s the former.

Grade: B