After it was revealed that Ray was still alive on last week’s Arrow, this week’s episode focused on Team Green Arrow going on a mission to say him, as Felicity discovers where Ray has been at for the past few months since the season three final. Meanwhile, Sara struggles with her Lazarus Pit bloodlust.
As we have been seeing for the first few weeks, both Arrow and The Flash have been setting up DC’s Legends of Tomorrow as they get ready for 2016. But something you notice in “Lost Souls” is that it seems that even though some of these characters have really important arcs to be done, they are oddly rushing the pacing. Sara’s struggle wasn’t shocking, because while her soul may have been restored, the effects of the Lazarus Pit still remain. Her decision to leave Star City to explore her second chance made sense, but with the crossover episodes being just two weeks away, I almost expected her to be in it so that the White Canary persona could get introduced, too. It seems that, at this point, the Legends of Tomorrow pilot will be where they introduce that identity for her, or maybe her soul journey is going to get her to that point on her own.
Even though this episode was about finding Ray, as he was being kept a prisoner of Damien Darhk, it felt like he was barely in it and was more mentioned and spoken about as opposed to being on screen. However, I appreciated every second of screentime that he did have because, despite Season 3 being as weak as it was, Ray was one of the big highlights of that season, so it was great seeing him again. What Ray’s character did cause though was for Felicity to go on a soul search of sorts, as she began looking over where she is now in her life, causing conflict between her and Oliver.
While I thought that plot had maybe a little bit too much focus in this episode, the conflict had interesting moments throughout “Lost Souls,” and while I have my thoughts on this relationship, I give the writers credit for putting in a mature conflict for the couple to deal with. It was definitely not the most interesting aspect of the episode, but it could be for the fact that I have been so into the setups for Legends of Tomorrow that I was expecting to see ton of Ray and Sara in this one.
Overall, “Lost Souls” wasn’t as good as “Haunted,” which is one of best episodes of the Season 4 so far, if not one of the best episodes of the series, period. However, I will give this episode credit for featuring some obstacles in the Oliver and Felicity relationship, because it can’t simply be 100% happy days and perfection. Hopefully, the upcoming episode of Arrow next week will be focusing a bit more on Ray, because the crossover event may not even have the Atom in it so use him while we still have him.
Arrow airs on Wednesday nights at 8/7c on The CW.
[Photo credit: Cate Cameron/The CW]
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