Episode Title: Restoration
Original Airdate: 10-21-15
With Laurel and Thea off at Nanda Parbat trying to resurrect Sara, it was down to OTA — Original Team Arrow — to handle the drama in Star City.
And there was some welcome drama on multiple fronts. Damien Darhk sicced Flash villain Double Down — he of the cursed magic played cards he uses as weapon – on Green Arrow while Diggle tried to track down a lead on his brother’s assassination. Turns out the same woman who arranged Double Down’s meeting with Darhk was the same person that may have hired Deadshot to kill Andy.
After a stern talking to from Felicity, Oliver and Diggle finally work out their issues. I was fully with Diggle on this, but being pissy at Oliver all season wasn’t going to play out especially well for Diggle.
Back on the same page, they’re ready to confront Double Down. While Double Down fought Green Arrow to a standstill, he’d lost some credibility after failing to kill Felicity and Curtis as they analyzed one of his skin cells/cards. Not surprisingly, Green Arrow and Diggle are able to take him down, but not before GA takes a bullet or card to the chest to protect his friend and fully regain his trust.
Side note: It seemed amazingly out of character for Felicity to ignore the matrix glitch in her phone and blow it off. Sure, analyzing a human playing card is pretty fascinating, but how can she play Words With Friends with it screwing up so much? The phone matrix no doubt is being caused by Ray trying to get out so he can return to the real world though I’m less clear how he would’ve gotten into the phone lines/cyberspace.
There was no way Laurel was going to look anything but incredibly selfish with her resurrection mission. Even after seeing a visibly shaken Nyssa at the prospect of her beloved being restored and Thea distraught over learning there’s no relief for her growing bloodlust except to kill, Laurel was still perfectly fine putting Sara through the same emotional chaos.
Laurel is just a tool to get Sara back so she can get on “DC’s Legends of Tomorrow,” but this undermines so much of the excellent character development Laurel underwent while initially getting closure with Sara’s murder.
The flashbacks weren’t especially useful this week as we see Oliver trying to save more of the hostages from quickly getting killed off by the mercenaries, but it’s still unclear why they’d be so willing to trust this newcomer to their group.
Final note: Darhk clearly is more than capable of taking Green Arrow out by himself and if GA was such a nuisance, why won’t he just kill Arrow himself?
Rating: 7 out of 10
Getting Sara and Ray will help immensely in terms of advancing this season’s storylines without being so tied to “Legends.” Next week looks like it will be major and one that’s got me the most excited since the premiere.
Channel: Superhero 