Ah well. Hopefully these inconsistencies will stop happening now that Arrow is shed of it’s most inconsistent character.
Lance’s Denial
Laurel’s father, who has had to suffer the death of his daughter Sara far more than is remotely fair, is having a hard time coming to terms with the reality of Laurel’s passing. He sees her on the hospital bed and that’s bad enough, but later when a Black Canary wannabe is seen running around town, he begins to believe Laurel is somehow alive. It takes Oliver bringing him to the morgue and showing him Laurel’s body there for him to accept that she has died.
But he hasn’t accepted that she can’t be brought back. He calls Nyssa to help him bring Laurel to the Lazarus Pit. When Nyssa tearfully admits that she destroyed the Lazarus Pit months ago (ironically or not, because of Laurel’s own actions!), Lance tries to go find another Lazarus Pit of his own or something that can bring his baby back.
It takes an emotional confrontation with Oliver for him to break down and admit that his rock, the one person who has always been there to hold him up, is gone forever. And she’s not coming back. To say that Paul Blackthorne gave me chills in his performance as Quentin Lance in this episode would be a gross understatement. His grief was palpable.
I’m very interested to see where Quentin goes from here, where he finds his strength, if he finds it at all. There’s a lot of story to be told for this poor man.
Diggle’s Guilt
It’s no small wonder that Diggle feels the lion’s share of the guilt this week. He draws a direct line from his refusal to listen to Oliver’s advice about not trusting Andy to Laurel’s death at the hands of Darhk. For a man who always sees the world in black and white, the shades of grey that are pressing in on him while dealing with this crippling guilt cause him to question his own identity, something Oliver is very familiar with.
Dig goes off the rails a little bit, chasing down Ruvè Darhk and threatening her at gunpoint. Oliver stops him before he can do something he will regret and tries to talk him down off his own crisis. Disaster is averted for now, but it’s clear that Dig’s journey is just beginning. He does get a little pep talk from Felicity that brings a small smile to his face, so he’s not entirely unreachable.
John Diggle will be tested with all of this, and it will take the team, his team, his found family to bring him back.
Imposter!
There’s a Tiny Canary running around Star City pretending to be the Black Canary. She even has a canary cry, stolen from Laurel’s belongings at the hospital. The team soon learns that she’s just a kid, a teenage orphan whose parents were killed by Darhk’s gas chamber back in December (around the time that Darhk took Thea, Diggle and Felicity hostage). The troubled youth is on a crusade for vengeance and using Laurel’s persona seems like as good a plan as any (though it makes less sense to the audience).
Also: how did she get Laurel’s device to work since Cisco keyed it to Laurel’s vocal cords specifically? The scream is louder and more effective too. There’s no answers on that, so we just have to shrug our shoulders and move on.
Unfortunately, Evelyn Sharp (the girl’s real name) is doing a disservice to Black Canary “esteemed” legacy by attacking relatively innocent folk and shooting people and generally being a bit of a pain in the ass. Ruvè Darhk, the city’s new mayor, is more than happy to drag the Black Canary name through the mud and the team can’t stand for it. So they get Evelyn to back down from murdering Ruvè (darn it) and Oliver claims the Black Canary for Laurel Lance in his eulogy to her so that the world knows that it was the fallen assistant DA that was the real hero. I mean… I guess?
Look Who’s Back!
Felicity returns to the team without much fanfare. She arrives with the rest of the team when Oliver calls them together, just shrugging it off. Later, she admits to Oliver that feels a little guilt over not having been with the team when Laurel died. Maybe if she’d been there, she could have made a difference. I just hope this means that she is back to stay because Team Arrow isn’t complete without Felicity Smoak. It feels great having her back.
Hope For Olicity?
I was encouraged last night, by the interactions between my two faves. There was no rehashing the hurt of their breakup (and Felicity was even able to make a joke about Oliver’s illegitimate child to try to cheer up Diggle). Oliver listened as Felicity explained the guilt she felt and tried to offer some reasoning for why she felt that way, while assuring her that she had no more reason than anyone else to feel guilty. It was a nice, quiet moment between them that was very much needed in the middle of such a grief-heavy episode.
Later, at the funeral, we run through the flash forwards we saw earlier in the season. What came as a surprise was the tone of their conversation in the limo. We expected bitterness, coldness, a separation. And while Oliver and Felicity are definitely not together, what we saw instead was a good old fashioned “you can do this” speech, not unlike the one Felicity gave Oliver in 2×22 before he faced down Slade.
Even better? She mentioned his ability to find another way as one of the many reasons she fell in love with him. There isn’t a very “this is how I used to feel” vibe to what she says. Not that we ever doubted that Felicity still is in love with Oliver, but it was nice to see the reminder. Hopefully, this points towards good things for this couple in the episodes to come!
The Problem with the Flashbacks
The flashbacks this episode were Laurel-focused, as they should have been. However, I don’t agree with the content. The show gave us a glimpse of what happened after the end of season 1, starting with Tommy’s funeral. It was very focused on Laurel’s relationship with Oliver at the time, going so far as to backpedal on certain things that the show has previously told fans, simply to give the fans of that relationship a softer landing. I can understand why the show went this route, but it made the flashbacks almost infuriatingly inconsistent.
The end result is the show doubling down on the fandom headcanon that whenever Laurel lovingly speaks of a future with “Ollie”, he panics and runs away. I’m perfectly willing to pretend those flashbacks (which were certainly fanservice) didn’t happen and stick to the story we’ve been going with since season 2 first started airing. Who’s with me?
Now, we have no more breaks before the finale and the next four episodes should be nothing short of amazing. Buckle up, Arrow fans! It’s going to be a bumpy ride!
