Well, here’s the episode that Manu Bennett has been waiting all season for. He is fantastic tonight. It’s strange that in an episode called “Deathstroke,” we only get about two minutes of Deathstroke, but Slade Wilson is doing enough damage on his own.
On the island, Slade told Oliver that he wouldn’t kill him until he knew complete despair. He makes good on that promise tonight. He’s tearing Oliver’s life down, brick by brick. First, he kidnaps Thea and delivers her to Sebastian Blood (hey, Brother Blood! Nice to see you again!). This means she isn’t there for Moira’s mayoral debate against Blood, who delivers one of my favorite lines of the night, when he tells Oliver that Thea’s absence is his fault, then waits a beat before delivering some cockamamie story about his police motorcade holding up traffic. There’s real menace behind Kevin Alejandro’s smile.
Slade doesn’t hurt Thea, though. After being arrested, and released, by the police, he returns and lets her go. He just wanted to prove a point (while watching this, I said out loud, by myself, “That is a baller move”). Slade lets Thea walk out the door, but not before offering to tell her the truth about her brother.
This is a great bait and switch, because what he really tells her is the truth about her mother – namely, that she lied about Robert Queen being Thea’s dad. So, she knows now that she’s Malcolm Merlyn’s daughter (good thing she didn’t know last season when she was trying to flirt with Tommy).
Then Slade shows up at Laurel’s apartment, because it’s been a few episodes since someone either showed up at or broke in to her place. Again, he doesn’t harm her, but he does tell her that Oliver is the Arrow. These lies that Oliver has constructed around himself, Slade is undoing them one by one. It’s concentrated and meticulous, and in “Deathstroke,” Slade Wilson proves himself to be the best villain that Arrow has ever had, by far.
A Few Thoughts
– Welcome back, Isabel! Oliver made her interim CEO while Thea was missing. Bad move, because the board of directors immediately voted him out of the building with this last name on it. Naturally she’s been working with Slade and Blood this whole time. I wonder if her sudden but inevitable betrayal is an oblique Firefly reference
– Quentin is in cuffs. I wonder how long it’ll be before he’s officially a part of Team Arrow
– Lastly, I think the writing might be on the wall for Laurel. Tommy didn’t last long after he found out Oliver’s secret, and Arrow has made no secret of the fact that it’s run out of plot lines for Laurel since Sara came back
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