At this point, I feel like I really need to just lean into what Arrow is doing and not think about it too much. The off-screen planning the writers employed to get Roy in and out of prison was a classic bait-and-switch plot that rather amusingly gave Oliver a taste of his own "We had to lie to you to protect you!" medicine (kind of, anyway). It was a hoary storytelling approach whose outcome was all but assured, even if Roy was sometimes treated like enough of an afterthought that his death could've feasibly been somewhat unceremonious. If Arrow had any sense of fun apart from Ray being a big, goofy kid, the Roy stuff might've felt a little like the nice, long-con reveal it was set up to be instead of just a fake-out to lull us into a false sense of security for the real shocker.
A run-through-by-a-sword Thea bleeding out on the floor was a perfectly fine cliffhanger for "Broken Arrow" to end on. The composition of the shot even gave it the feel of the last page in a comic book; the only thing missing was a "To be continued..." in the bottom lefthand corner of the panel. It was the perfect image and plot development to leave an audience in suspense until the next issue/episode/installment/what have you. Of course, it would've been better if there were any actual suspense about whether or not Thea will survive this attack.
I mean, Ra's all but explained exactly what he was doing and why he was doing it while he humored Thea during their fight. Since Team Arrow has outmaneuvered Ra's and his plan to turn Starling City against Oliver, the only move Ra's has left is to force Oliver to come to him and beg to use the healing pool at Nanda Parbat—yes, I know it's a Lazarus Pit, but no one's actually called it by that name yet—to save Thea. I'm sure Ra's will be more than happy to allow Oliver to use the pool to save Thea's life, so long as Oliver agrees to become the next Demon's Head. Ra's al Ghul always gets what he wants, and Oliver would do just about anything to make sure Thea doesn't die from actions that are intended to hurt him.
Had Ra's not obliquely laid this out for us, or had Maseo or a few random members of the League attacked Thea instead, I'd probably be less confident regarding Thea's more immediate fate. But since that wasn't the case and since Arrow is savvy enough to know that we're savvy enough to piece this stuff together, achieving a truly suspenseful cliffhanger probably wasn't the writers' ultimate goal with "Broken Arrow." It's more likely that they wanted us to ask, "Well, if that wasn't the big twist, what exactly do they have in store for us?" My bet is that Oliver joins the League for a bit and tries to shut it down from the inside, but his plan somehow goes south and Thea ends up being Ra's new protégé instead of Oliver. After all, that prophecy Malcolm mentioned says that the person who survives being killed by Ra's blade will become Ra's al Ghul. The prophecy doesn't say how that person survives, so there's some room for Thea to claim the prize provided the healing pool does its thing.
"Broken Arrow" was more than just its last 15 minutes or so, but the early stuff wasn't very interesting. That Oliver has trouble accepting help from other people was hardly a startling revelation, so the episode's heavy emphasis on combating Oliver's "go it alone" attitude felt a bit stale. Arrow sort of walked down this road when Oliver returned to Starling City after being mostly dead; back then, he had to adjust to the fact that Team Arrow is really a team that shares his goals and not a squad that follows his orders, so watching him go through it again now, this time with Ray involved, didn't make his experience any more meaningful.
Then again, so much of Oliver's identity crisis this season hasn't been particularly meaningful. He rejects being Oliver Queen because he thinks he can only be the Arrow, and he's willing to sacrifice a lot because of this belief—something Felicity helpfully reminded him of. However, he's hemmed and hawed quite a bit about whether or not he's making the right choices, even though he hasn't really done anything as Oliver Queen since the start of the season. He's been stripped of the Arrow identity thanks to Roy's actions, which only leaves Oliver Queen or Ra's al Ghul as options, and since Oliver Queen is pretty much a non-entity in Oliver's own psyche, can we really be surprised if/when he sacrifices Oliver Queen to save Thea? It would feel like a weightier conflict if Oliver actually tried his hand at doing something as Oliver Queen, but after nearly an entire season of fretting about it without action, I'm just waiting for it to be over.
"Broken Arrow" was not Ray's first or even second time in the field as the Atom. No, instead it was his third round of not doing a super job in his super suit. In the getup's first outing, Oliver disabled it by targeting the battery. In its second, it ended up soaking wet after Ray flew away from a swarm of mechanical bees in Central City and crash-landed into the back of a van. And here, he had the snot beaten out of him by Deathbolt (Doug Jones, who was pretty much totally misused), a metahuman who shot lasers out of his eyes and then surrendered his suit for Oliver to control like it he was Hugh Jackman in Real Steel and Ray was... well, actually, the robot named Atom. Huh. Weird. Anyway.
Like with Laurel as the Black Canary, it's nice that Ray is going through a learning curve as he figures out how this whole costumed crime fighter thing works. He's getting beaten up, making adjustments, and recognizes that he has a lot to learn if he doesn't want to die. It isn't just plug-and-play. What was painfully frustrating was that the attitude Oliver copped with Laurel wanting to get into the hero game was pretty much absent from his interactions with Ray. I get that Oliver cares about Laurel in a way he obviously does not care about Ray, and I even understand that Oliver was pretty much making do since Barry wasn't available. However, there was no second-guessing of Ray's motivations like there was for Laurel, and Oliver's criticism of Ray's actions were constructive, not dismissive. Hell, Oliver even gave Ray an inspirational speech to make the goofball billionaire get up and knock the crap out of Deathbolt. Laurel's actually had some training and the most she gets is resigned glares of disapproval now.
The difference in Oliver's degree of caring probably makes all the difference in the world. Maybe it's even a sign of growth for Oliver that he's cool with Ray being in the field despite being vastly underprepared. Mostly, though, it felt like it was giving us the illusion of the latter so the notion that Oliver is accepting help from people now is going to stick.
FROM THE QUIVER
– The most interesting thing to come out of "Broken Arrow" was the revelation that Deathbolt wasn't in Central City the night of the particle accelerator explosion. So how did he get his laserbeam eyes? Honestly, this feels like a very early seed for The CW's combined spin-off of Arrow and The Flash, or something that's going to connect either to Shrieve here on Arrow or to Eiling over on The Flash.
– I know Season 3's early flashbacks were supposed to map Oliver being a killer and reveal how A.R.G.U.S. trained him to be a weapon, but at this point, that idea is dead and buried, right? Now Oliver, Maseo, and Tatsu are stopping the bioweapon Waller lost control of, which Shrieve is going to unleash on Hong Kong because he wants to cripple China as an economic and political power. Okay, then.
– Over/under on when Colton Haynes is announced as part of the aforementioned "Everybody and Kitchen Sink Man" spin-off? Related: I'm a bit sad Haynes is gone (for now?) as I was actually starting to really like him. He was very good in that visitation scene with Willa Holland.
– "There's a decent chance you and Palmer are related."
– Ray asked Cisco the question that every viewer of The Flash has been asking all season, and we still don't have an answer.
What did you think of "Broken Arrow"?
