The Suicide Squad rides again!
What They Say:
Suicidal Tendencies – Diggle and Lyla’s honeymoon is interrupted by the Suicide Squad and a new mission; Oliver and Ray have a heated confrontation about the Atom costume, leading to a rough patch between Ray and Felicity.
The Review:
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
Having Oliver work through the offer that was made to him by Ra’s al Ghul in the previous episode certainly was awkward in some ways, but the main point of it was having him realize exactly what his mission is and that he’s working towards a larger goal is something that he needed to have come into focus. While it was a bit roundabout in some ways, it all came together well with what Oliver firms up around, but he also has some rugs pulled out from under him with how it all goes. Which, of course, is part of how his life goes as there can’t be good times for long because Oliver thrives on angst. And angst is going to hit hard now that Ra’s has come to Starling City and is dressing up as Oliver as he doles out his form of justice on everyone. Suffice to say, it’s never easy being in Oliver’s circle.
With the cold open here, we get the wedding for Diggle and Lyla, and I’ll admit I don’t remember much of this plot happening in the last few episodes, though the whole parenting thing had obviously gotten more serious. Diggle’s subplot has been pretty light overall for awhile and this just reinforces how underserved the character has been. There’s obviously some simple and silly stuff here as the minister ends up falling through and Ray, of course, has a minister background that comes in handy. That serves to widen the wedge between Oliver and Felicity a little more as it adds a little more character to Ray, though it is just a forced piece overall. But it lets the wedding go forward and the fun that comes from that as the dialogue between Lyla and Diggle is definitely fun. Add in Felicity catching the bouquet and that just adds to the situation in an even more obvious way, but it works since it’s good to just see her smiling for a little bit.
Since Ra’s has been out killing people, that’s making its way into the headlines now with the bodies piling up and Oliver being blamed. With Ra’s having said the city will turn against him, he’s forcing its hand in order to get Oliver to take the deal that he’s offered him. Oliver’s course is fairly clear here and everyone completely gets what’s going on, so there’s not a lot of beating around the bush, but there’s also a nice twist to it that comes into play. While everyone is ready to do what it takes, the show diverges into a different direction as Oliver insists that Diggle and Lyla head off on their honeymoon while the rest of them deal with this. Naturally, that trip to Fiji doesn’t start off as they expected as the waiting limo actually has Deadshot in it as the Suicide Squad is ready to ride again now that they’ve picked them up.
Having enjoyed the Suicide Squad material before, and being a fan of the older comics, getting an episode focused on that here with it being the mainline story definitely works for me. While Lyla is assigned to the extraction mission of a US senator with the Task Force X group, Diggle isn’t letting her go on her own to Kasnia. It’s a small team overall with just Cupid and Deadshot, who certainly has some great dialogue about how intent she is still on bagging the Arrow and what she’s going to do with him. But even Deadshot gets some decent dialogue here and a little expansion on his past, which helps to humanize him a bit more in showing his soldier days when he came home to his wife and the way events went home there. It’s a familiar story to be sure, but they all sell it pretty well with what’s involved emotionally for all of them.
Playing the mission with motions towards the flashback sequence works well as we get it pretty clear that he did a lot of things that have unhinged him, and that he has the skill to do it. His time in the present isn’t too strong, but he has some solid moments as the mission goes awry as it turns out that the Senator had his own plan for how this would all go down and being rescued was not a part of it. It makes for a decent action sequence as he goes off the rails, but it also has a cute twist with Cupid being saved by Deadshot and that gets her to pay a lot more attention to him, at least for the moment. But as cute as it all is, it turns far more deadly when they discover that the Senator had set all this up as a bit of theater so he could poll through the roof and take the presidency due to his heroic actions. Things go in some tense directions across it, and some decent emotion, but as fun as it is, it’s the flashback storyline that really sells it. With Lawton in jail after threatening his wife, having someone coming to hire him who works for HIVE sends the right shivers, as does the honeybee comment. That their target at the time was Diggle certainly adds a fun element to their relationship overall.
The action in the escape part of the plan plays out very well as the team puts a plan into motion to get everyone out before the hospital explodes, and it also has a really good bit with LAwton being the noble type here to protect Diggle and Lyla since he has that connection with them, and the whole parent side as well that he failed hard on. The choreography is strong and with it being different sets and locations than usual, it has a solid feel as a more military style operation plays out. While it’s hard to believe that Lawton is dead because of what he does, the whole team moniker does come into play and I wouldn’t be surprised to see them bury him for awhile in favor of letting the feature film take over the character name for awhile.
Oliver’s hunt for Ra’s is one that has him dealing with things more on his own since the League is out of Roy’s league, and Ra’s is definitely exceptionally skilled in making it a convincing run as Oliver. But he’s also smart enough to draw in more members of the League to do the deed, which gives us a great three on one Arrow vs Arrow sequence. Ra’s is intent on bringing Oliver in to his side and is going the distance to do so. What’s fun is the way it plays out as a new complication enters the picture after Maseo makes it clear that Ra’s won’t stop and disappears with the other League members. The complicated part is the arrival of Ray in his Atom suit up in the sky as he uses his advanced software with facial recognition to figure out who the Arrow is. That continues to be the worst kept secret ever in this show, but since we know it’s going to be a part of a bigger plan, a lot of which revolves around the way that Oliver’s work continues to inspire others, it can be only so frustrating. At least with Ray, he uses some smart tech to figure it out rather than stumbling onto it accidentally.
The immediate fallout is definitely fun as we get Ray saying it to Felicity pretty bluntly, which has her stammering a bit at first and then going into serious defensive mode with him over what Oliver has done in the past as the Arrow. It’s an unsurprising rift that opens between the two because of the trust that he’s placed in her for awhile now, but something this big is like a real wound to him as he takes things very personally when it comes to his feelings towards her. What will make things interesting is seeing how Ray will proceed to deal with the problem because he’s intent on protecting the city, since he wants to take the Arrow to justice. Felicity revealing everything to Oliver unfortunately has her in near tears again, but there’s some cuteness with Roy being impressed and Oliver being frustrated. You do have to feel bad a bit for Ray though as when he goes to the DA’s and talks to Laurel, she basically shoots him down multiple ways because of the uncertainty of what he’s providing. But in the end, it pushes him towards what he really wants to do as he knows the courts won’t really help. It’s time for him to suit up and do it himself.
What I really liked though was seeing Oliver just go, in street clothes, to confront Ray to see where things stand. The two men have their issues to be sure, but there’s also a lot of testosterone flowing there as Ray takes up the challenge of taking down Ra’s himself since he does get it that Ra’s and his group are the real threat, at least at the moment. Hyper competitive male superheroes? Color me shocked. What’s really surprising though is that Ray orchestrates a trap to capture Oliver, faking a 911 call, which leads to a surprisingly fun action sequence even if some of the special effects are showing a learning curve. While Roy gets his ass handed to him quick, Oliver takes a few hits before being all Batman in taking down Ray’s suit with some quick, smart thinking and observation. The two don’t exactly see eye to eye here, but Oliver totally nails the dark noble side of what he’s doing and his own odd way of trying to inspire others.
In Summary:
While we get our usual array of wonky situations, dialogue and interactions, overall the episode definitely hits a lot of the right notes. The show realized it could start making certain changes to its worldview after the Flash crossover and seeing what we get here definitely shows that they’re going for it and largely succeeding – at least outside of some of the learning curve special effects. The dynamic change is definitely going to be interesting to watch and seeing how it grows into the other series that’s coming will definitely add to it all. The Suicide Squad aspect of it has a few low moments to it, but by and large it succeeds well on a lot of levels and it’s a welcome change to let that part of the puzzle provide the flashback aspect of the episode. A good episode overall that builds on things and makes some changes to the dynamic of the series overall with what’s going on in those that are trying to save the city.
Grade: B+
