What They Say:
Heir to the Demon – Lance and Oliver try to talk Sara into reuniting with Laurel, who continues to unravel. Dinah is kidnapped.
Content:
Like a lot of fans, I’m not particularly enamored with the Laurel storyline that’s going on, but I am curious how it’s going to tie into everything else that’s going on. The series has shown some solid connected storylines across the season and a half it has run so far, so I have to believe that there’s a real goal here with the character to do something meaningful with her in some way. Similarly, I have to believe the same with the subplot that makes me cringe about Moira attempting to run mayor. While I can certainly understand it and the various ways it can be used to do any number of things in the larger storyline, it’s something that feels like a little too much amid so many other things going on this season, especially as we haven’t had much of Queen Consolidated lately and the messes over there that were being worked through with some of the new staff and Oliver’s own position in it.
With this episode, we again get a number of things going on, including the arrival at the start with a certain Miss Raatko through the Starling City international airport where she’s called out by the security side of things before she’s able to smack them all down easily, slipping into the crowd and crossing into the city. The best part is that after being there for a bit, she’s all done up in the black leather and weapons as she comes across Sara in the dark of night. But no fight starts right then and there but rather a pretty deep and impressive kiss that really leaves you wondering what Sara was up to during her time in the League of Assassins when she was training and learning the ropes of it.
With Laurel’s storyline, we get her in the hospital at the start here after the incident in the previous episode and not only does she have her father there, her mother has returned and Oliver as well. Something is a bit different about her, and her eye as we get a glimpse of it, but she’s also coping with the fact that she saw her sister when the attack happened and has convinced herself naturally that she was hallucinating. It doesn’t help her overall mental stability with things like that going on. While she is getting a good bit of help, most of it unwanted, Oliver is convinced that she really does need her sister in her life again in some form and is doing his best to convince Sara to reconnect with her. Which Sara doesn’t want to since she is still on the run from the League of Assassins and there are some real issues there of course.
Oliver isn’t exactly enamored with the new arrival in his city, and the first meeting with Nyssa Al Ghul, daughter of Ra’s Al Ghul, is one that is amusingly tense since he sees the way the two women greeted each other. There’s a real history that we see being bandied about by them that goes back to how Sara left, but I love that Sara puts it on Oliver not so much to trust Nyssa but rather to trust her. We’ve had such a fractured history for Sara since the ship went down at the beginning of the series that we know we’re missing a good deal of events and how it all comes together to where she is now. Trust is not something that Oliver gives easily and while he does trust her on some level, considering the experiences they’ve shared, you have to feel that he can’t completely trust her. Especially since Nyssa represents something very dangerous that he’s had only a fleeting amount of experience with but understands just how involved it is.
Interestingly, we see how Nyssa has used Laurel to draw out Sara in order to get her back and that leads to a great, if brief, action sequence that has Sara and Oliver costumed up in a car chase to try and rescue Sara’s mother. It’s short, but man, it works beautifully as we get the costumed heroes leaping about and attempting to save the day but falling short. Nyssa provides good balance to it as well with her defensive pushes using her bow, which naturally means she’ll be able to handle going against Oliver as well. By Sara really shines here as she rides the back of the motorcycle, leaps off it it onto the van and struggles with trying to find an in to get to her mother only to be completely rebuffed. Which is made worse because she knows it’s her fault that her mother’s been taken in like this.
The show takes an interesting turn that brings in some great emotion as Sara sets things up so as to get her mother back, but it involves her revealing herself to her as well. With her father going in first, it’s a pretty solid sequence as Dinah can’t believe what she’s seeing and then having Quentin take her away so Sara can go with Nyssa just enhances it all the more. Of course, we also know that Sara has poisoned herself, whereas Oliver thought that she’d try to poison Nyssa, but that was largely because he was misreading just how strong Sara’s feelings for Nyssa are. This gives us a good emotional moment between the two women when Nyssa realizes what Sara’s done and the impact on her is definitely significant and well played. It may not be the best of moves on anyone’s part, but it’s how they’re coping with a bad situation.
Not surprisingly, the show delves into a fight since Oliver has to try and save Sara and that means Nyssa has someone to vent her frustrations out on. It is, again, a short fight but it’s one that gives Oliver a good physical challenge since Nyssa is skilled and she’s got some emotion to her as well. But their common bond of Sara actually manages to come through in a not unexpected way, but it does surprise that Nyssa releases Sara from the League. As she had said before, the only time they had done that before was with Malcolm Merlyn and that did not turn out well for the League. But the relationship the two share is coloring things and allows it to happen, at least for now. What’s really going to be fun is the fallout from Sara being able to re-enter the world now since the League won’t be after her and Laurel is now aware of it as well. And there’s also a certain new freedom that Sara has that allows an old relationship to surface again, much to the freakout by the Olicity shippers.
In Summary:
Once again, Arrow pushes through a lot of changes here. Moira begins her political campaign but she ends up losing Oliver in a big way when Felicity reveals things to him that have been eating at her for an age. Sara’s relationship with Nyssa and the League of Assassins is nicely revealed and that gives us some good action sequences but it ends up pushing Sara into the light a bit more, which is all Laurel needed to really spiral off the deep end. But it also allows Sara to finally live, something she hasn’t done these last six years of being on the run and that’s going to throw a real wrench into things. The flashbacks that involve the Lance family are nicely done and establish a bit more of the sibling issues that have been touched upon to varying degrees and it segues into other areas quite nicely too. All in all, there’s a whole lot to like here, plenty of forward progress and a great tease for Slade that leaves me anxiously waiting for more. And hoping for Nyssa to return as well as she was a very interesting character to step in here.
Grade: B+
