Arrow Season 3 Episodes 18-19 review - Public Enemy/Broken Arrow

Let's continue our look at Arrow, is the finale draws closer

Public Enemy

Ah, so the idiot juice continues to flow this season

Look, I sort of get Captain Lance being angry about not being told about Sarah’s death, despite the fact the Oliver did tell Laurel to tell him. But this manhunt is a regression of his character and it’s actually kind of annoying. Hey, maybe these guys who KIDNAPPED YOU and also seem to have bows and arrows, one of whom you recognised as the HEAD OF THE LEAGUE OF ASSASSINS, maybe one of them killed the Mayor.

God, I want to talk about the sub-plots because this is so infuriatingly stupid. So, Ray Palmer is in hospital thanks to an injury he sustained during an attack on the Mayor and in healing he attained a blood clot that could kill him, unless he has surgery, which given his injuries could at best lead to brain damage. But Ray Palmer being the super-genius has invented nanobytes that can heal the injury and… I love it when things become this crazy.

Also, Felcity’s mom returns, she has very little to do with anything, her soul purpose is to distract a doctor so that Felicity can inject ray with the nano-thingies which cure him without doing anything like develop his character or anything. So, the status quo is restored, he says he loves Felicity but she can’t bring herself to say it back, upsetting her. This is better than the f*cking A-plot. Seriously

You know what else beats the A-plot, the stuff on Lian Yu. Turns out it was Shado’s sister Oliver bumped into and she’s desperate to know what happened to them. Meanwhile Amanda Waller has sent more gun-toting assassins to kill them for reasons, when you feel ready to tell us what they are, instead of going into the backstory of yet another character, let me know. So Maseo and Tatsu show up to haul them out of the fire and Shado’s sister finds out about her father and sister both being dead, and she thanks Oliver for the truth (nice to know this lesson comes into effect NOW, instead of, you know, any-when in the last 2 years)

So, speaking of truths, Quintin finds out that Sara was on Lian Yu, and that Oliver Queen is the Arrow… Further fuelling his exceptionally misguided rage. And he basically tells the whole city about his identity. Oliver surrenders himself and gets the others full pardons somehow but… Then Roy decides to surrender himself instead, after admitting to Thea earlier he sort of wished he was because of the harm he caused to those cops.

Erm, what else is there to say about this episode, it’s another episode continuing the downhill trend since the offer, I want to love this series again, make me love it again, please!

Rating 9.5/10

Just kidding!

Rating 5.9/10

Broken Arrow

“I hear you go by Red Arrow now. Ha, more like Broken Arrow”

This episode is definitely better in that it actually does have some tension; unfortunately it suffers from the same problems that have plagued the last 2 episodes. Namely that Quintin still has head shoved up his own rear and can’t see the forest for the f*cking trees and that Oliver’s identity crisis still lacks him having a second identity to consider

With Roy giving himself up in the last episode as the Arrow and with Quintin uncovering the Arrow cave. Oliver has lost the Arrow as his second self. He feels as if he has no choice but being either Oliver Queen or Ra’s al Ghul and considering the amount of Oliver Queen we’ve seen this season and especially given what happens at the end (I’ll get to that later) I think his choice is (at least for the moment) obvious.

I really kind of wish the ‘Connor Hawke’ subplot would come to fruition now because it would give Oliver a genuine reason to want to be Oliver Queen again, with Thea in the know and Queen Consolidated gone, there’s very little to connect him to his alter-ego.

So, with Lance following his every move (despite calls from partners, God if Lance doesn’t die or somehow have a change of heart after this I really give up on his character) and a supervillain called Deathbolt (who’s about as interesting as most villains on Arrow, or the Flash) Arrow has to learn to accept help from Ray Palmer, whose knock-off Iron Man suit goes to pursue him (I’ll stop calling it that when they actually give him the powers that the Atom has)

Ray gets his ass handed to him and decides he needs shields (see why I keep referring to this suit as knock off Iron-Man?) but Oliver says it’s because he relies on his suit more than his instincts (a fair criticism) so they go out again, with Ray relying on his tech more than his instincts (OK, he has Oliver’s instincts, but still relies on tech) but when that goes wrong, a motivational speech causes the defeat of our supervillain.

It’s interesting to note that Deathbolt was in Opal City (home of Star-man, which might be relevant for the team-up series) at the time of the particle accelerator explosion so it might not be responsible for his transformation.

So Roy’s death was faked thanks to Argus and he decides to go off, leave Thea behind and start a new life… Colton Hayes will be back for one episode for this season but I kind of wish this had been built up more. Roy’s character had been languishing a bit this season (he was even left behind after being electrocuted by Ray a few episodes back)

Then of course the final scene. Ra’s al Ghul has sort-of failed to turn the city against Oliver Queen, so he’s getting to him another way. But attacking Thea, she puts up a fight but of course she’s no match for him. It’s nice but it’s pretty unlikely Thea will die at the end, so it’s not suspenseful.

In China, we find out that Waller was not responsible for hunting them (thank heaven, Waller may be a b*tch but she’s not that sort of a b*tch) and that China is planning an attack on their own country for reasons I can’t remember. They get the antidote and they plan… It’s still not interesting.

Rating 7.5/10

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