Last night’s episode of Arrow was the big 50th episode that has been one incredibly anticipated episode for a lot of viewers of the CW hit series. The episode picks up right where we left off last week with Nyssa (Katrina Law) showing up in the Arrow Cave asking where Sara is and she learns the tragic news that her loved one was killed. Nyssa was one of my favorite guest characters from last season so it was great to see her back again in a bigger capacity, although the circumstances were obviously tragic. Law has such a strong presence whenever she is on screen and seeing the struggle she has to through was just heartbreaking.
This was the episode where Oliver finally — and I can’t put enough emphasis on it — learned that Malcolm Merlyn is in fact still alive after their showdown in the season 1 finale. Even though we knew it was coming, just getting to see Oliver’s reaction to the revelation and seeing Malcolm in the flesh was a stellar moment. One of the journeys that Oliver has been going through since last year is his rules of not killing anymore, but seeing him and Malcolm together, you could see in his eyes that he almost wants to let that side out again.
There has been major speculations regarding who Sara’s killer is and obviously Malcolm has been one of those suspected people. Even though Malcolm swore on Thea’s life that he didn’t kill Sara, I have thought for a while that it wasn’t him because how could he have been in Starling City that night if he was supposedly in Corto Maltese with Thea? It’s definitely someone else and the mystery will most likely not be solved till either the mid-season finale or the season finale in May. I’m however curious to what Malcolm’s motives are right now, is he looking to attack the city again, is he looking to destroy Oliver by manipulating Thea?
There was just something incredibly different about the tone of this episode that stood out in different ways compared to other big episodes that the series has had throughout the years. Being the 50th episode, it felt like a discreet celebration of the series as a whole as it tied back into Oliver’s and Malcolm’s last moments in season 1 and what had happened in season 2. I will say that there were a lot of intense moments in this episode form Nyssa and Oliver having their arguments to Laurel disagreeing with Oliver’s choice to let Malcolm live and so on.
Speaking of Laurel, the writers are nailing the writing for her character this season as each episode has been one improvement after another for her which makes me very happy. Despite that she is disagreeing with Oliver a lot, it’s not annoying like it was last season and I feel a lot of her feelings are a lot easier to take serious now. She had a lot of great interactions with Nyssa which makes me hope that Nyssa will be hanging out a lot with Laurel this season. Maybe she can also be another trainer for Laurel with her training which may actually be the case as we were given a potential hint during that scene in Ted Grant’s boxing place.
The relationship between Thea and Oliver continues to get more screentime than ever which I’m thrilled about, but it also starts to show us that Thea is now becoming the liar. I’m wondering right now what her agenda is because I still don’t think Thea’s path this year is to become evil, but it’s a huge question mark right now. Holland’s and Amell’s chemistry are stronger than ever and it will be intriguing to see what will actually happen between them as the season progresses.
While I have been enjoying the flashbacks with Hong Kong a lot this season, it felt out of place because it didn’t really tie into anything in the present (unless I missed something) and I would have preferred if they had been replaced by more scenes in the present. If you have a big episode like the 50th and you want to include flashbacks, then make sure to feature something that actually makes sense for the episode. The only thing I took away from the flashbacks was getting to see Amanda Waller again.
“The Magician” promised a lot of things and one of them was the first and highly anticipated introduction of DC Comics villain, Ra’s al Ghul (Matt Nable) whose appearance I expected to be a little longer in terms of screentime. But I was pleased regardless with the brief moment that we got of him as he is not happy to hear that Oliver wants to keep Malcolm alive and therefore promises that a war is coming. I can’t say much of Nable’s portrayal of him just yet because I need to see more, but I do like his voice a lot as well as his costume as both aspects reminds me a lot about the comic version. I think Nable will be great as Ra’s and we will definitely be seeing a lot of him in the next few weeks.
Overall, “The Magician” was a phenomenal episode and a great 50th episode as well as we got a great dosage of Barrowman’s Malcolm who the title referred to as in the comic books, one of his aliases is Merlyn the Magician. The performances were outstanding as always and they took a lot of big steps forward in the overall storyline for the season.
Arrow airs on Wednesday nights, 8/7c on The CW.
Image via CW
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