What They Say:
After defeating Ra’s Al-Ghul, Oliver’s decided to put the vigilante life behind him and retires out in the suburbs with Felicity. However when a new threat run by Damien Darke appears, Oliver must once again take up the hood. This time though he’s decided to take on the title of “Green Arrow” and vows to be the symbol of hope the old Arrow wasn’t, but will Oliver be able to escape the darkness of his past so easily?
The Review:
Content (warning as portions of this review may contain spoilers):
Well, it’s been a few weeks in the making but we’ve finally come to the much anticipated Arrow/Constantine crossover. Admittedly I never actually saw Constantine so I wasn’t sure what exactly to expect from this, but crossovers are usually good at being pretty fun and bringing different elements into a show. In the case of this week’s Arrow though it helps in making a heavily drama ridden episode a solid outing.
Starting things off, Thea decides to hire a political strategist to help Oliver with his campaign, and he’s given the recommendation to ditch his friendship with Laurel in order to avoid any scandals concerning their past together. While Thea doesn’t think it’s right for Oliver to consider turning his back on his friend, he considers the idea and it only gets worse when he finds out the truth about Sarah and how she’s now on the loose. He doesn’t take this well and especially when Sarah goes after Thea in an attempt to satiate her bloodlust, but Laurel feels Oliver’s being pretty hypocritical given Thea’s current situation and feels Oliver doesn’t respect her enough not to be judgmental of her mistakes. There’s…some truth to that to be sure but as the saying goes, two wrongs don’t make a right so even though we’re clearly supposed to be sympathizing with Laurel here it’s kind of hard to considering the circumstances she’s put Sarah into are far worse than what Oliver did. Still it’s kind of nice to see Oliver’s double standards being addressed and more importantly after the conversation, Laurel finally starts to realize the gravity of what she’s done even if I wish she’d be called out on it harder.
Eventually, the team’s able to set a trap for Sarah but after realizing her soul isn’t with her body, Oliver decides to call up a favor from his old buddy Constantine. We learn in this week’s flashback that Constantine came to the island on a secret mission of his own and ended saving Oliver from getting found out. Constantine decides to use Oliver to help him on his mission and in the process, Oliver ends up saving his life, cementing them as friends and offering an explanation for that mystic tattoo Oliver’s had on his chest since season 1 (yay consistency). It’s pretty interesting to see Oliver getting his first taste for the supernatural here, and given the soldiers on the island are apparently dabbling in something similar, it should be fun to see how he confronts that.
Back on present matters, though, Constantine prepares a ritual to bring back Sarah’s soul from the Lazarus Pit and manages to pull it off with help from Oliver and Laurel. Afterward, Oliver and Laurel manage to patch things up as Oliver decides not take to the advice to avoid her, and their friendship’s now stronger than it’s been for the last couple of seasons (hopefully not too strong though given this show’s obsession with overbearing love triangles). However Constantine gives the team a warning not to mess with Darke, and that he’s far more dangerous than any of them has realized.
That’s far from the only bit of ominous news this week as it also extends to the subplots. While the Sarah stuff is going on, Lance takes Diggle with him on an assignment for Darke and in the process they find out the truth about why H.I.V.E assassinated Diggle’s brother to begin with. Seems he was up to more than his fair share of…unsavory activities and he was taken out because he was proven to be too much competition. We haven’t quite gotten to see Diggle’s reaction to this revelation yet, but given how much he was driven by his chance for revenge, it’s certain to have a pretty big effect on him. As for the Felicity stuff this week, we finally find out what’s pretty obvious given the upcoming spin-off series: That Ray is, in fact, alive. Problem is he’s being held captive…by Darke from the looks of next week’s promo so that’s certainly bound to be a crazy break out attempt. All in all, this episode isn’t quite up there with last week’s but it’s a pretty good one, and now that we’ve gotten most of the “dark” stuff this season out of the way, more focus can now be put towards dealing with the man himself (forgive my bad jokes).
In Summary:
The Constantine crossover delivers as we finally get a solid resolution to the Sarah resurrection plot, and the character himself proves to be a pretty good fit for this series. Sadly Laurel’s not punished for recent events as much as she should be, but I’m glad we at least got some form of repentance from her and hopefully the writers can find something a bit more positive for her character to do now (hopefully non-romance related). Looking forward to the Ray breakout next week, and hopefully the show continues its strong run for this season.
Grade: B+
