I need to take a minute to point out how much better the villains are in Arrow‘s second season in comparison to its first one. Slade Wilson and Anthony Ivo are a hundred times more interesting than Edward Fyers and Malcom Merlyn, in his ridiculous League of Assassins getup. He looked like he picked “rogue” during character creation in Baldur’s Gate.
“The Promise” is an island-heavy episode of Arrow, and I’m actually okay with that. My criticism of island flashbacks has always been they serve only to fill in blanks; there are elements of surprise but not necessarily of suspense. We know how Oliver gets off the island, so it’s hard to get invested in anything else. Case in point, when Ivo threatens to remove Anatoly’s eye, I didn’t break a sweat, because we see Anatoly earlier this season and he had both eyes.
There’s a lot established in “The Promise,” though; enough to get even the most casual viewer excited for the next three episodes. It’s a great hour for Manu Bennett, whose Slade Wilson shows more dimension in this hour than he has since he was introduced. Oliver, Slade, and Sara attempt to take Ivo’s freighter, and in doing so Slade learns the truth of Shado’s death. Bennett’s guttural voice conveys so much in this scene: betrayal, anger, lost. Earlier in the episode he called Oliver his brother, and now he has to face the truth, or at least the truth according to Anthony Ivo: Oliver could have saved Sara or Shado, and he picked Sara. That’s unforgivable to Slade. He’s six feet of Mirakuru-enhanced Australian badass, and not the guy whose bad side you want to end up on.
This is further illustrated by Slade’s visit to Moira, which soon becomes a visit to Moira, Oliver, and Thea. Every one of Slade’s utterances is a thinly veiled threat to Oliver; Bennett is a truly menacing presence and looks to be a great adversary.
My main gripe with “The Promise” is that Team Arrow gets little if anything to do. Felicity and Roy get in about two lines each, and Diggle gets to hold a gun…for about five minutes before he’s captured. Damn, Diggle, how many tours did you serve and you can’t hear someone sneaking up on you?
The best thing about Slade’s return to Oliver’s life is that he doesn’t mince words and doesn’t try to mask why he’s there. By the end of the episode, Oliver knows that Slade is behind Brother Blood, whom Oliver still thinks of as “the man in the skull mask” (which incidentally is my porn name). Slade is firmly, quickly, and most of all believably set up as Oliver’s nemesis, even if the hatred is one-sided. You should be very, very excited for Arrow‘s concluding episodes – especially because the season finale is called “Deathstroke.”
About Author
