As we begin to head towards the end of Arrow Season 4 as the death of Laurel Lance continues to be a huge effect on our characters, this week’s episode hit the intensity level big time as it is John Diggle vs Andy Diggle while Thea tries to go on a vacation that, because it’s Arrow, goes horribly wrong.
Let’s start with poor Ms. Queen who can’t catch a break at all. The minute I read that they were going on a vacation in the episode synopsis, you knew that this was going to end terribly in one way or another. I have never really gotten behind the character of Alex and last week didn’t make his case any better. It’s also probably because I’m still missing the great relationship that Thea had with Roy (Colton Haynes please come back!) as they were absolutely perfect together — I still need some episode where Arsenal and Speedy get to fight together. They would have matching outfits!
Anyway, the fact that something messed up would happen on their trip, was extremely predictable. What was a big surprise though was that Thea had ended up being trapped inside this dome world that I guess HIVE is planning to use when they have nuked the world — oh we will get to that in a bit — and start rebuilding the new one. It was just disappointing that when Thea actually gets a little storyline of her own, it just goes to hell for her. I admired the fact that Thea from the get-go noticed that something was up as things in the environment were on a loop and whatever bull-excuse that Alex was trying to throw her way, she wouldn’t bite.
The episode was particularly big for Diggle as he continued to seek down Andy after his betrayal to the team and was partly responsible for Laurel’s death. Every single second that Andy was on-screen and kept talking forever, I was waiting for Diggle to just pull the trigger. However a part of me wasn’t really sure if the writers would make Diggle cross that line because this is supposed to be the person that always has himself in check. I was honestly terrified that they would have Andy actually kill either Lyla or baby Sara because it’s the kind of things you can expect with this show now since “Eleven-Fifty Nine”. Luckily, none of that happened — also because how heartbreaking would it be to have to see an adorable baby like Sara go away? — as Diggle took his brother life, at last.
Oliver and Felicity had some adventures of their own as Ollie tries to learn how to repel Damien’s magic. We get introduced to the character of Fortuna who teaches Oliver about dark magic and how important it is that you balance the light and darkness inside of you in order to cancel out Damien’s magic. During the “ritual”, we saw Oliver seeing the faces of foes like Malcolm (although I don’t get why Malcolm had to be covered in mask during that sequence), Deathstroke and also Damien which was a really cool sequence. It was also compelling to see some of his dark memories inside of him as we got reminded that we have lost Robert, Moira, Tommy, Laurel, how he almost died against Ra’s al Ghul and apparently a little foreshadow to the flashbacks as Taiana’s eyes were glowing yellow.
It was an almost flawless sequence until we see the flashback to when Felicity left the ring and walked out on him. I’m sorry, but no matter how much he loves her, is a break-up really as dark as all those deaths that we have seen in Oliver’s life? Sure if that had been the only “dark moment” we had seen a flashback to, but when included in a sequence like that, that break-up is nothing compared to the losses of all those characters. Eventually we see Oliver starting to channel the two forces and manage to stop Damien during their encounter. I will admit that seeing Stephen Amell with those yellow glowing eyes, was cool. Overall, “Genesis” wasn’t really what I expected as I really thought that it would end with the project launching in some capacity, but it was really just to tell us what Genesis is all about, which is something at least. Did anyone else notice that there were no flashbacks this week? Me neither!
Arrow airs on Wednesday nights at 8/7c on The CW.
[Photo: Diyah Pera/The CW]
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