Article first published as ARROW Review Season 3 Episode 10 Left Behind on Seat42F.
ARROW airs Wednesdays at 8 p.m. ET on the CW.
The CW’s ARROW comes back from a
nail-biting cliffhanger this week with “Left Behind.” Several days after
Oliver’s (Stephen Amell) deadly battle, his team has heard nothing of
his fate and struggle to accept the possibility he might not be coming
back. They valiantly try to continue the good fight in his name, but
they may not be up to the task without their leader.
Oliver is the glue that holds Team Arrow
together. Personally, I think it would be really cool for ARROW to kill
off Oliver, something that happens in comic books, an alter ego dying
and another picking up the mantle, but I don’t believe has ever happened
to a central superhero on a television series. Yes, Black Canary is
killed and replaced, but not being a main or titular character, it’s not
the same thing. It’s not that I don’t like Amell or Oliver; it would
just be a very bold, unexpected move that would signal to the viewers
that this series means business.
Instead, because Oliver is made to be
the glue, things cannot function without him. Felicity (Emily Bett
Rickards), once she stops denying the most likely scenario, quits the
team, and tells Ray (Brandon Routh) that she won’t be helping him fight
crime, either. Diggle (David Ramsey) tries to wear the green hood, but
he is not that skilled with a bow and finds it easier to return to his
plain clothes and gun. Roy (Colton Hayes) is the only one that seems to
be doing well, but he can’t go it alone.
An answer to Team Arrow’s
problem could be Laurel (Katie Cassidy), who dons the Black Canary
outfit for the first time at the end of “Left Behind.” She has a strong
enough personality to be a leader, though there’s no guarantee the
existing members would take orders from a semi-outsider. Plus, she’s
been acting a little reckless, so she may not make the best decisions
for them.
So Team Arrow is left in a holding, or
disintegrating, pattern until Oliver can return. He’s alive, of course,
Malcolm Merlyn’s (John Barrowman) evidence to the contrary, though
Malcolm can be forgiven for believing as he does. Maseo (Karl Yune)
rescues Oliver from the cliff because, as we see in flashback, Oliver
risks his neck to save Maseo’s wife, Tatsu (Rila Fukushima). Thus, it
will only be a matter of time, and perhaps some physical therapy, before
Oliver resumes his role as protector of the city.
That time can’t come soon enough. The
bad guy in “Left Behind” is Brick (Vinnie Jones), a returning foe who is
able to gain the upper hand here. He isn’t someone to be trifled with,
and now that he knows the heroes are vulnerable, he’ll probably be
breaking quite a few more laws than previously. If he is to be stopped,
either Team Arrow needs to pull itself together or Oliver needs to get
back on the job.
Thea (Willa Holland) doesn’t know that
Oliver is dead, but since he’s really still alive, I guess that doesn’t
put her at a disadvantage. She’s worried because she hasn’t heard from
him, but despite the fact that she’s the one who sends Malcolm to
investigate in the first place, Malcolm doesn’t share what he finds with
her. So Thea still doesn’t know Oliver is The Arrow or that he went
into a fight to the death on her behalf.
What is Malcolm’s game? Why doesn’t he
tell Thea the truth about Oliver? Is he worried that the truth will make
Thea think more highly of her brother, thus bleeding away some of the
influence Malcolm has over her? Or does he want to draw out Thea’s
distress so she comes to rely more on him as a shoulder to cry on? And
is he sincere about wanting to be a father, or does he have some dark
purpose for Thea?
These questions and more will surely be
answered in upcoming installments of ARROW. If there’s one thing you can
say about the show, it’s not boring (except some of the flashback
parts). It’s also usually well crafted, with mysteries eventually being
solved and elements playing into one another. If it were a little
bolder, it would be nearly perfect.
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