After a huge and intense episode last week with Nyssa al Ghul and Malcolm Merlyn’s war coming to an end, this week’s Arrow focuses more heavily on Oliver’s candidacy.
We get introduced to the Demolition Team, a group of baddies that actually comes from the comic books which was a surprise to me, but I’m always up for getting introduced to obscure comic characters. It was neat seeing X-Men’s Daniel Cudmore make his debut in the DC TV Universe as Jackhammer, which I don’t think had been previously announced until his appearance in the trailer last week. Even though that team came from Damien, it was still a nice change from seeing Green Arrow, Black Canary, Speedy and Spartan just fight H.I.V.E. members all the time. Also, with the terrific James Bamford directing this episode, we got some really stellar action pieces. Something that I’ve noticed this season is now that the team is as big as it is, it gives us cool moments like in this episode where we see so many members fight at the same time. I’m crossing my fingers at this point that Bamford also directs the season finale this year.
Leading up to this episode, it felt like we were going to really focus a lot on Oliver’s candidacy as he faces his new rival candidate Ruvé Adams a.k.a. Damien’s wife. However, the episode used a lot of time to prepare for that big debate as opposed to actually showing us it. All we get at the end is them getting ready to start it before we cut to commercials and come back to find out that it went really well for Oliver. But why didn’t we get to SEE some of it and only got to HEAR about it? I probably need to go back and re-watch some of the previous episodes, but at this point I feel that Oliver’s candidacy isn’t getting the focus that it should and is more dealt with off-screen. While we didn’t get that, the episode spent a great amount of time between Oliver and Thea as she finds out about William. I really expected her to try and convince Ollie to confess to Felicity, but she did a 180 and supports him for keeping his promise to Samantha. While it can be discussed whether it was the right advice or not, just that scene alone felt so mature and it makes you happy as a viewer to see how much these two siblings have grown. However, it doesn’t matter what Oliver decides to do at this point regarding William due to the ending of the episode, which we will get to in a bit.
But despite the great intense stuff with the Demolition team, the last five minutes of the episode were 50% shocking (in a good way) as well as 50% annoying to watch. Curtis shows up at the end with a big surprise for Felicity which is a new piece of technology that is going to make her walk again. As I’ve said in previous reviews, this is the one thing that I didn’t want the writers to explore at all because Felicity’s injury shouldn’t be something that gets easily fixed. As a comic book fan, I shouldn’t be surprised that Curtis has suddenly come up with a piece of technology that can make her walk again. However, for a show that balances between being grounded and also having this comic book aspect to it, this could have been a good instance where it wasn’t that simple. I actually find Felicity more interesting now that she can’t walk, because it’s a difficulty that she can’t hack herself out of. Before the winter finale, Felicity was a character that had barely gone through major life-changing situations or losses like the rest of the characters. Her injury was really the first time she went through something like that. To then suddenly know that it’s possibly going to get fixed just like that takes away the effect of the damage that Darhk caused her and Oliver. It takes away the whole idea of stakes, the biggest thing that this show is trying to bring back this season. There is always the chance something can go wrong and Curtis’ tech won’t work at all, but knowing Arrow, they are probably going to go through with it and have her up on her feet in the next few weeks.
However, the 50% that I did like about those final minutes was the cliffhanger that Damien has kidnapped William. Damien isn’t pulling any stops, is he? I can only imagine the insanity that will take place next week. Overall, despite the situation with Felicity possibly walking again, “Code of Silence” was a solid episode that went deep on the William subject and featured Team Green Arrow going up against a decently fun group of villains.
Arrow airs on Wednesday nights, 8/7c on The CW.
[Photo credit: Katie Yu/ The CW]
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