#arrow 409

The episode of Arrow this week was well coordinated but lacked the extra amount of everything to make it a meaningful episode. As is so often seen in this show, the potential for a great episode is there but it never put together well enough or some other rogue element prevents the episode from being great. The character development and the emotional integrity were there and very beautiful, but for some reason it seemed subdued and there wasn’t enough time between Felicity and Oliver. In the flashbacks, there was purely exposition which seemed unnecessary and did not develop the characters at all and so seemed fake.  The action was enjoyable and seeing Malcolm fight in the Green Arrow costume was amusing, but it felt rushed and when it came down to the final fight, there wasn’t much that actually happened. The ending seemed to abrupt and, as happy as the proposal made me, I would have preferred a private proposal as it would have been more emotional and so would have made Felicity’s injury/death more emotional.

The character for Felicity and Oliver in the episode was great, but there wasn’t enough of it in order to make this a character driven episode. Having Felicity find out about the proposal early in the episode was a risky move on behalf of the writers and made sense logically but I thought it was the wrong decision as it stretched emotion that should have been concentrated over the entire episode making it weaker than it should have been. Seeing Oliver panic as he did was enjoyable, I like seeing an Oliver that doesn’t stay that level headed and freaks out like a normal human being. Malcolm’s appearances in these last few episodes have been quite frequent which downplays the importance of him when he does appear. I was not star struck like I was when he first appeared in this season. They are overdoing his character, as much as I love John Barrowman and his excellent acting skills. Damien Darhk was as always a fantastic villain in this episode. At times he seemed a bit cartoonish but how realistic can one be when one gets to chokehold one’s opponents. He is a terrifying character, and as much as he scares Team Arrow, he seems to scare his own superiors too. I am looking forward to see if he goes rogue towards the end of this series.

The plot this episode was decent, but it suffered from the same problem as Supergirl: Only revealing the cause of the action near the end without creating around the mystery around the cause itself. The attack on civilians at the beginning of the episode was the most terrifying event of the entire episode, due to what has been happening in the real world at the moment. The choreography was enjoyable but it wasn’t very memorable apart from Darhk blatant use of “The Force” to strangle the Green Arrow (Malcolm). The CGI used for Oliver swimming and for the shark in the flashbacks was unnecessary and took me out of the scene completely. I really hope that Felicity does not die at this point in the series. It is not unheard of as the writers did kill off Oliver last season which was unexpected. I was hoping that it was Laural who died, but now I have no idea whose funeral Barry and Oliver are at in the flash-forward. Whatever H.I.V.E is planning I am looking forward to it (Project Genesis I believe it was called) and see how it intertwines with magic and the flashbacks.