Article originally posted as ARROW Review Season 3 Episode 22 This Is Your Sword on Seat42F.
ARROW’s season finale, airing next Wednesday at 8 p.m. ET on the CW, is sure to be tense and satisfying. Don’t miss it.
With only an hour left in this crazy, crazy season of Arrow
on the CW, Al Sah-Him (Stephen Amell) has only two tasks left before he
can become Ra’s al Ghul. But Malcolm (John Barrowman) suddenly claims
that Al Sah-Him is still Oliver, executing an elaborate ruse. With
everything Al Sah-Him has done, from kidnapping Lyla to almost killing
Nyssa (Katrina Law) and Diggle (David Ramsey), it doesn’t seem likely
Malcolm is telling the truth. Plus, Malcolm is a known liar. Should Team
Arrow take a chance and trust him in “This Is Your Sword?”
It turns out, Oliver is still in control
of his actions. I’d say that is unrealistic, given how far Oliver has
gone, and I definitely question the scene in which Oliver maybe thinks
he slaughters Diggle, but Oliver is known to go to extremes. If he
believes a cause is important enough, he will sacrifice far more than
most, totally committing to a mission. Because of this personality
trait, I can see how Oliver may have been playing a game the entire
time.
It’s not a game anymore in “This Is Your Sword,” though. Malcolm leads Team Arrow
in an assault to stop Ra’s (Matt Nable) from unleashing a deadly virus
on Starling City. The battle is an awesome sequence, with Laurel (Katie
Cassidy) getting a great dig into Malcolm, Felicity (Emily Bett
Rickards) wrongly believing she has killed with an iPad, and The Atom
(Brandon Routh) spectacularly saving the day. In the end, though, Tatsu
(Rila Fukushima), who joins Team Arrow in the assault, executes Maseo
(Karl Yune), releasing him from The League to be at peace with their
daughter, and everyone else is captured.
In Nanda Parbat (which, despite the
plane ride, must be one county over given how often travel to and from
it happens), Oliver begs the others to believe him, but even Diggle is
having none of it. Diggle is blinded by anger as to what Oliver has
done, thinking he has gone too far in keeping his cover, and thus has
crossed the line into unforgiveable territory. It’s a real shame to see
the best friends at such odds. I wish Oliver had been able to let Diggle
into the plan earlier, rather than team with Malcolm. But Oliver knows
Diggle would try to stop some of the things he’s doing, while Malcolm
does not. So even if Oliver succeeds, will he have a home to go back to?
To Oliver, it probably doesn’t matter if
he loses everyone or not by “This Is Your Sword.” That’s not to say he
doesn’t care, and I don’t for a single second believe that Oliver let
Ra’s kill all his friends with the virus. But Oliver clearly has made
peace with the necessities of what he is doing. If losing his cherished
relationships is the price he must pay in order to save tens or hundreds
of thousands of lives, he’s prepared to do so. He truly is the hero of
ARROW.
Does that mean Diggle and the others are
not heroes, since they aren’t willing to go as far as Oliver? That’s a
tough question to answer. On one hand, how far can a hero go to pretend
to be on the dark side without losing the essence of good? Do the ends
justify the means? On the other, Oliver is still saving lives that he
may not be able to, playing by Team Arrow’s rules. I think this chasm
can be bridged next season, but there’s a long way to go until Oliver
can be back in anyone’s good graces.
Malcolm is definitely not a hero. He
agrees to help Oliver because Thea (Willa Holland) is in Starling and
could be one of the dead. But captured by Ra’s, Malcolm wastes no time
in selling Oliver out. Ra’s may or may not believe Malcolm, but the last
step of Oliver’s plan will certainly be that much harder to carry out
after this betrayal.
Ray is a hero, giving of himself for a
woman who doesn’t love him. He even gifts Felicity the company, though
she doesn’t realize it yet. I’m glad Ray is continuing in the spin-off,
since his time on ARROW seems nearly over.
Thankfully, Thea is far away from all of
this. She tracks down Roy (Colton Haynes), now living as “Jason,” and
reconnects with him, emotionally and sexually. When she wakes in the
morning, though, Roy is gone and his suit is still there, giving Thea is
blessing to take on the Arsenal mantle. He doesn’t want to hold Thea
back and doesn’t see a way to return. I don’t agree with Roy’s decision,
but it makes sense for his arc for his departure to be real in “This Is
Your Sword,” as regrettable as that may be for the show, and at least
Thea gets to see him one last time.
There are flashbacks again, even more
unnecessary than ever. Viewers can glean from the present events that
Maseo and Tatsu lose their son to the virus. We don’t need to see Oliver
and Maseo fail to find a cure. These become more and more unnecessary
with every passing year. I hope they are ditched entirely in the very
near future.
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