For an episode that featured Oliver in almost every scene, “The Return” was really all about Thea Queen. It was a flashback episode in every sense of the phrase; even the present-day scenes took place on Lian Yu, where we met Oliver way back in season one. That explains why Willa Holland gets such juicy material – she gets to play the old coke-snorting party girl Thea Queen, and also the new no-nonsense ass-kicking Thea Queen (Oliver even marvels at her progress as a fighter: “You learned all that in nine months?”).
“The Return” was a hit parade of Arrow characters who left us too soon – there’s Tommy Merlyn, Robert Queen, and, pleasingly, Manu Bennett as Slade Wilson, who – let me check my notes – yep, is still crazy as shit. Malcolm Merlyn decided to spice up Oliver and Thea’s training session by helping Slade escape, so now they have that shit to deal with. All jokes aside, the fear on Oliver’s face when he realizes Slade is gone is completely real. He beat Slade, but only just so, and coming off of a crushing defeat by Ra’s al Ghul, his confidence is shaken. But I guess fighting an insane Australian commando who hates you more than anything is as good a way as any to regain your killer instinct.
Except he doesn’t, not really. After Oliver and Thea fight Slade to the ground, and Thea has a gun pointed at him, I wrote in my notes “Wonder why they won’t kill Slade this time.” And they don’t! It’s frustrating. Oliver has some speech about not stooping to Malcolm’s level, but stooping to Malcolm’s level is the whole reason they went to Lian Yu. Oliver needs to train himself to be a killer if he has any hope of stopping Ra’s al Ghul, and not killing someone is a pretty bad fucking start.
But I’m going to give the island scenes a pass regardless, for a couple reasons. One, it’s the most time that Stephen Amell and Willa Holland have gotten together all season, and they clearly missed acting together. Their chemistry is natural and believable (I buy them as siblings more than I did Katie Cassidy and Caity Lotz), and now that their secrets are in the open, the relationship is a lot less tense. Which brings me to my second point – Oliver tells Thea that she’s the one who killed Sara, and it absolutely destroys her. Slade’s point is not invalid: Oliver lost his parents, and with this revelation he may very well have lost his sister. Arrow is pretty damn good at upping emotional stakes.
Elsewhere, in the actual flashbacks, Oliver and Maseo are back in Starling City to stop a woman whose name I absolutely cannot pronounce from selling Omega, one half of a devastating biological agent. This requires Oliver to break into Queen Consolidated, where he finds a video message from his dad, the gist of which is “Be a superhero.” Anyway, they find the auction location and ARGUS pretty much totally fucks it up, until Oliver punches that woman in the face and they get the Omega back.
With the exception of Oliver’s return to Starling City – which Amell plays as exactly the kind of torture it must have been – the ARGUS stuff hasn’t interested me all that much, probably because it’s hard to top “Suicide Squad” in terms of ARGUS episodes. But going back to Starling, I thought, was a stroke of genius, and it was fun to watch Oliver skulk around in the shadows, spying on his friends and family. Also, we got a little bit of foreshadowing with him in a green hood.
I missed reviewing this show, and I promise I’ll be more on the ball (moving to Denver is surprisingly complicated, guys). Especially now that the war with Ra’s and the League is about to go down hard.
A Few Thoughts
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Poor Quentin Lance had to grieve for Sara twice
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That was Marc Singer as Gen. Matthew Schrieve there at the end. In the comics, Schrieve is the head of a group called the Creature Commandos, which, yes, whatever that is I want in
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