After a hiatus that felt like an eternity, The CW’s Arrow finally returned last night, and while the extremely dark tone gave me a mixed reaction, “The Offer” was an extremely well-written and compelling episode with Oliver truly revealing the major identity crisis he is going through.
I will comment on this factor right away: it’s getting overwhelming to see how dark this show has become this season, and now, more than ever, I hope that the show will become a lot brighter after this year. With that said, there was a lot of emotional beats that I didn’t get tired of, especially with Oliver as we are starting to see that shield crack more than ever. Seeing Stephen Amell’s character finally be the one that asks a lot of questions and struggles re-energizes my interest for this character.
Oliver comes back to Starling after getting the offer of becoming the new Ra’s al Ghul and that’s essentially what he has to deal the most with throughout the whole episode, as Ra’s predictions of the city turning against him slowly come to fruition. Captain Lance lashes out on the Arrow for not telling him that his daughter had died, and it makes me more concerned about the fate of that character by the time we end this season. Regardless, if he takes on a villainous role or not, this show NEEDS a character like Quentin.
Was it just me who felt that Oliver had way too many “ouch, burned!” moments in “The Offer” when it came to Felicity? However, it was incredibly sweet when she acknowledged to Oliver that, despite who she is with romantically now, he is and always will be an important part of her life.
Nyssa was a lot of fun to follow in “The Offer,” especially after she learned that Daddy Ghul (I’m sure Ra’s would have me killed for terming him like that) chose an outsider over his own daughter to take over for him. But here is the thing that is so good about that conflict: it makes Nyssa want to get more distant from Ra’s and more present in Starling, which is where I want her to be in because Katrina Law is just amazing in this role. I loved that she got closer with Laurel and seeing that relationship come to a very nice point. Can we please promote Law to series regular in Season 4 because I would be so game for tons of Laurel/Nyssa scenes.
By the time we get to the end of this episode, Oliver has overcome, to a degree, his problems with who he is and what he can do, and he decides to deny Ra’s offer, which brings us to a very shocking end scene. Ra’s decides to suit up as the Arrow and pose as him by going around and killing criminals that were left after the group terrorized the police station earlier in the episode. That’s a twist that I can get behind because that’s a new thing for me when it comes to Ra’s al Ghul as a whole.
Overall, “The Offer” was a very strong episode that made me sympathize a lot s Oliver more than I have this entire season. I have been harsh on him because of him being so difficult and arrogant a lot this year, but now we are getting somewhere and it’s a way that makes me feel for this hero once again.
Arrow airs on Wednesday nights, 8/7c on The CW.
[Photo via The CW]
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