TV Retrospective - Arrow Season 1 episodes 22-23

So, it's time to finish our look at the first season of Arrow, as things build to a climax that's not to be missed

Darkness on the edge of town

We’re counting down now, 2 episodes left, the next episode the finale. And when things need to build up…

So, the plot: The Dark Archer is back, murdering everyone at Unidac Industries and that’s before the opening titles.

But the second plotline straight off the back comes to Ollie admitting he was an idiot to say what he said in the last episode about still loving Laurel. Although it’s met with Laurel still has feelings for him too. Everyone has to be complicated, don’t they?

Walter is greeted home with the same line she said to Oliver, although Walter seems a little subdued from the events. Of course this leads to Thea doing some foreshadowing, and eventually Walter files divorce papers. He’s right, given the circumstances, it’s quite lenient.

Meanwhile, Oliver tries to coax the truth out of Moira, but when that, unsurprisingly fails, he tries a more drastic approach. Using Diggle to impersonate the arrow, he gets Moira to talk by punching Oliver. She eventually spills everything

Moira’s words resonate and force a stealth attack on Merlyn global, and hacking into their computer system to find the Earthquake device. This forces a few confrontations, the first between Oliver and Tommy.

Roy and Thea continue their quest to find the Arrow, they’re also lead to Merlyn global so Oliver can play disapproving brother again! Yay! And then we have the incredibly forced conflict between them because they need to be split up so Thea can worry for him when the plot starts happening.

The Police have a lead to Felicity smoak. And just to top off the complicated cr*p Laurel and Oliver spend the night together with Tommy watching outside. Oliver, you are a grade A tw*t!

On the Island, we find the guy that was desperate what as a ploy as Oliver suspected, but he’s flaming angry at him for some reason.  Fyres plans to blow up a plane, nice reference to Carol Ferris, aka Star Sapphire. And he wants to destabilise the Chinese economy for his employer, for some reason (bear in mind in season 3, we find out it has nothing to do with the economy, and everything to do with a target on that plane, so even the writers couldn’t work out what to do with that plot coldesac)

Yao Fei eventually agrees to be the face of the attack, because they need a face for some f*cking reason. And then they kill him.

And to top it all off Oliver is unmasked by Malcolm. Bring on the finale!

Rating 8.5/10

Sacrifice

It’s finale time!

Oliver’s time in chains is short-lived as Diggle rescues him before the opening titles, although at least he manages to free himself from being chained up.

Felicity manages to talk her way out going to jail, because she can talk her way out of just about anything.

And we get the fallout from Oliver being an idiot with Laurel last week. You know since him finding out that Oliver’s the vigilante, Tommy has done nothing but argue with Oliver. God I’d wish he’d die and simplify things.

Ollie tries to convince Tommy of his father, frankly I think he would’ve had a better chance teaching a fish how to walk.

Quintin throws his career down the ladder by revealing his involvement with the vigilante. But he has a point. What good are laws if they can’t protect people?

Oliver confronts his mother, reveals the information about his father, and with that level of determination, probably his secret identity as well, well done Oliver. And then he does the same with Laurel, for f*ck’s sake man, find some better excuses!

Malcolm shows Tommy the tape, and it finally clicks that his father is completely bloody nuts. Moira shows some balls (figuratively speaking of course) and reveals the truth to the press, and is arrested for obvious reasons.

But with all that payoff the action begins as Ollie and Diggle face Merlyn whilst Quintin works to shut down the device as Roy faces against criminals in the glades and rescuing some people with Thea and phew, I’m pooped out just watching it

On the island, it’s a frenzy as our heroes escape and go on an all-out assault to stop the missile blowing up that plane and… they succeed. We see Fyres capture Shado and Ollie kill his first target with an arrow.

And speaking of killing with an arrow, Merlyn is defeated by one, and the device is deactivated, but if you’ve ever played Jak II you’ll know “the first rule of making a bomb, is to always make two,” and another device goes off, partially destroying the glades and killing Tommy… that makes what I said earlier awkward, doesn’t it?

They have a lot of balls to end where they did. It’s no happy ending, the villain was successful, at least partially and a major cast member has died, so Kudos, and all joking aside, it’s a great episode, looking forward to season 2

Rating 9/10

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Images used in this review are from Arrow and belong to their respective owners. All images in this review are subject to fair use.