It’s been three weeks since
Oliver gave up everything he loved to save Thea’s life by joining the League of
Assassins. We don’t know much about how he spent those three weeks other than
sleeping in a small room, being trained in combat by Ra’s al Ghul, and
apparently being mind-controlled into forgetting who he used to be. His first
true test of loyalty came in the form of a captured Diggle who supposedly snuck
back in to rescue Oliver but who also insists that he was captured while trying
to escape in the first place and has been held at Nanda Parbat all along.
Whatever the truth is, it is up to Oliver to deal with him, and he orders the
other men to give Dig a sword because he won’t kill an unarmed man. In the end
he stabs and kills him only for it to turn out not to be Dig after all – Ra’s
explains to Oliver that he was given a herb that made his conscious take over his
mind. Now, I only have two small questions about all of this.
2. Is Oliver pretending or have they really brainwashed him completely in only three weeks? I’m always wary about non-supernatural brainwashing in movies/TV because I think in reality they would only work under really, really extreme circumstances, and I have a hard time believing that repeating „Oliver Queen is dead” over and over again for three weeks would be enough to do the trick. Because that’s literally all we’ve been shown so far.
In any case, Ra’s seems to have
complete faith that Oliver’s conversion has worked, and tells him that there is
only one final thing he needs to do in order to truly become his heir: kill his
rival, Nyssa, who also claims to be Heir to the Demon and thus has to be
eliminated.
Meanwhile in Starling City,
Laurel is being coached through fighting a mugger by Nyssa, then they decide to
go out for mikshakes. The image of the two costumed superheroes discussing
dinner plans was fantastic, and with every passing second my need for Nyssa to
become a regular next season was growing stronger and stronger. I just really
love her partnership with Laurel, and apparently Laurel loves it too, and
that’s why she held out for so long on not telling Nyssa about Oliver becoming
Ra’s’ new heir – because she saw how happy she was and didn’t want to ruin it.
Awwww. Too bad she eventually decided to tell her about it over milkshakes, and
Nyssa was understandably pretty upset, not only at the news itself but also at
Laurel for keeping it from her. She also knows that this means that Oliver will
come for her, and decides that she will not hide, but face him and fight for
her rights. Laurel asks Dig and Felicity to help her protect Nyssa, but they
are unwilling to do anything for the daughter of Ra’s, plus Felicity doesn’t
even want to believe that Oliver would do such a thing, or that he could have
been brainwashed. She shouts a lot about how Oliver would never change, and
it’s all very annoying and ridiculous because would anyone just stand by
Laurel’s side every once in a while? That would be really nice.
Oliver and Nyssa finally come
face to face on the rooftop where Sara died, and he seems completely willing to
kill her until Laurel and Dig appear, with Laurel using her Canary Cry for the
very first time with impressive results, at which point he realizes that he’s
outnumbered and jumps off the room, while Felicity watches the whole thing
unfold on her computer screen. The also showed up at the new Team Arrow
headquaretrs and found out about Oliver being back from Felicity, which she was
so unwilling to believe that he went to Malcolm for reassurance, and then
decided that she has to stop Oliver if no one else will.
Oliver decides to up the stakes
by kidnapping Lyla and demanding Nyssa in exchange, which makes Dig really
angry and causes him to shout at Laurel and Nyssa, demanding that she hand over
herself, which Nyssa agrees to, much to Laurel’s annoyance. She tells Dig that
if this happens, "Oliver won't be the only one to have lost his
soul.", and I was about ready to give her a standing ovation. Laurel is
the best, seriously. In the end Nyssa wins out and everyone collectively goes
to face Oliver. Felicity tries to talk him back into being himself, but his
only response is to order his men to bind Nyssa. Lyla runs to the others and
finds two guns in Felicity’s coat while hugging her, and I guess this was what
they planned all along. Lyla shoots two of Oliver’s men and a small fight
ensues, during which Nyssa is dragged away and Oliver stabs Dig for real – in
fact, he’s about to kill him when Thea shows up, shoots him with an arrow and
tells him to get away from him or the next one will go into his head. Oliver
walks away and team meet back at HQ, where Dig announces the obvious: Oliver is
really gone, so it’s only them now.
Back at Nanda Parbat, Oliver
delivers Nyssa to Ra’s. He asks for her weapons and takes something out of her
sword’s hilt. Oliver is about to kill her but Ra’s grabs his arm, says that
Oliver’s reign is no longer threatened because Nyssa is already broken (I
highly doubt that but whatever you say, dude), and instead of killing her,
Oliver should marry her instead ro unite their bloodlines. Wow, I bet no one
saw THAT coming! I certainly didn’t. So now that Oliver no longer has a rival
to murder, Ra’s gives him a new assignment: he shows him the bioweapong that
Nyssa had stolen and hidden in her sword, and tells him to unleash it on
Starling City. Why? Who knows, but at least we finally know where those
seemingly pointless flashbacks were heading all along: this is the same weapon
that Oliver attempted to steal back in Hong Kong, but ended up breaking one of
the vials instead. It kinda pisses me off that we had to sit through a whole
season of boring ass flashbacks all because of this, but yeah... at least this should set up the final
confrontation between Oliver and Ra’s nicely.
Episode MVP: Katie Cassidy as Laurel Lance
Quote of the episode:
"I will not cower in the
shadows waiting for death." – Nyssa al Ghul
Random tidbits:
- There was a new narration at the
beginning of the episode, starting with „My name was Oliver Queen”, which was a
nice touch. I still hope they’ll finally get rid of the opening narration in
the next season, though.
- This week’s flashbacks were all
about the consequences of Oliver accidentally releasing the bioweapon: people
were dying all over the place, and others were pretending to give uninfected
people a cure while giving them the actual virus instead. Oliver and company
eventually blew up the truck with the virus in it, went back to find Akio, and
were just about to leave Hong Kong when Tatsu realized that Akio was infected
too. So I guess that’s how he’s gonna die, huh. Poor baby.
- Ra’s told Oliver about his old
friend that he was supposed to kill in order to become the next heir, but
instead let said friend escape. What’s more, apparently Oliver indirectly knows
him too: he tried to purchase the earthquake generator back in season one, as
well as doing other bad stuff that were not elaborated on. But when Ra’s said
"Damien continues the League's ways but through his own organization,
filled with a hive of agents devoted
to his own agenda."... well, that’s it then: the Big Bad for next season.
We already heard about HIVE from Deadshot: they were the ones who wanted Dig’s
brother dead. I guess this means that Dig will finally get a proper storyline
next season, investigating Andy’s death, which is something we’ve been waiting
for for years, and I’m completely on board with it!
- There were lots of nice little
moments between certain characters in this episode: Felicity and Thea having
dinner at Dig’s place and feeding Baby Sara, Dig and Felicity talking about
Oliver and hugging, Felicity visiting Thea and them discussing how much they
both love Oliver still... wonderful stuff.
- I don’t know why I find Thea
calling Dig ’Mr. Diggle’ so adorable, but I do.
- Laurel eating a milkshake alone
at the end of the episode was heartbreaking. So was seeing that Dig has a
picture of him and Oliver on his wedding night displayed in his apartment.
- Felicity told Thea that Roy was
still alive, and gave him his address/phone number/new identity/whatever, so I
guess we’re going to see Roy again sooner than we thought.
- Felicity also told Dig that
they’re gonna have to come up with a new „identity concealment” for him if he
keeps going out in the field, and I
can’t wait what kind of costume he’s gonna wear.
- About halfway through the episode
I started to wish that everyonw would stop saying ’Heir to the Demon’ every two
minutes... it just sounds so ridiculous.
Nincsenek megjegyzések:
Megjegyzés küldése