This week’s Arrow featured the return of a lot of fan-favorites with Roy Harper, Nyssa al Ghul, Katana and even Shado, as well as the introduction of Tom Amandes as DC Comics’ the Calculator who, as easily guessed, was revealed as Felicity’s father. In addition to that, Thea’s blood lust situation starts to get even worse.
Despite that many of my favorites, including Roy, returned for this episode, “Unchained” felt it was a little all over the place, despite how smoothly a lot of things came together in the end. But despite of that, it was fun to see so many old faces, especially with Roy who, despite the trouble he had gotten into thanks to Calculator, felt a lot more mature and grown-up this time around. His heart-to-heart with Oliver was one of my favorite scenes between the two of them and reminded us all that these two, despite many disagreements, have grown. While the circumstances weren’t the best, because of her condition, it was also neat to see Roy and Thea have scenes together again. I will admit that I deeply miss that relationship on a more frequent basis and while we don’t know if Colton Haynes is coming back for more episodes, I wouldn’t rule it out.
Katana because even though we had seen her in a recent trailer weeks ago, I thought she was popping up much later. While I was glad that Nyssa finally escaped from the League lair, the moment she and Katana started their battle over the Lotus (which we learn later can cure Thea’s blood lust), I got terrified that they were killing off Katana. Just like Amanda Waller, Deadshot, Tatsu is also a Suicide Squad character who will be part of the film and I was worried they would kill her off too because of the film. But based on Nyssa’s return in Star City at the end, they pretty much left it open ended. Did Katana accept Nyssa’s plan with the Lotus or did she not approve of it, leading them to fight again and supposedly losing? Only time will tell and hopefully she is alive, set to come back again for another episode. I’m mixed with the ending as Nyssa offers Oliver the Lotus, if he kills Malcolm. She was literally standing over Thea who is now in a coma, and yet she put that demand on Oliver. Nyssa has her rough sides, for understandable reasons, bu this felt like she was acting out of character.
The Calculator was a new DC character for me so I didn’t have any high or low expectations, except that he would be revealed as Felicity’s dad because it was just way too obvious. That’s not a slam on the show, it’s just that there were too many clues available, and thus I didn’t feel much at the end with Felicity and her dad’s reunion. The banter they had between each other through the cyber-world, was funny to a certain degree, as the team were trying to stop the web nuke. It felt like his debut was supposed to have a larger presence and yet it didn’t have a big effect. But it seems quite likely that he will be showing up again quite soon so hopefully then, I will have a better impression of him. The biggest mystery right now is whether or not the two of them know that they were fighting each other during their cyber-battle.
It’s sad that the flashbacks are so hard to care for, even when we get a hallucination-Shado popping up to give Oliver some needed guidance. Also, it didn’t help that there had to be a sad element in the flashbacks this week, just as the present was having a similar tone, as Oliver tell Taiana the truth about him killing her brother. But there is no point in complaining about the flashbacks as they aren’t going away anytime soon. All we can hope for is that they are saving the best for last in Season 5’s flashbacks.
Arrow airs on Wednesday nights, 8/7c on The CW.
[Photo: Liane Hentscher/ The CW]
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