Review of ‘Arrow’ Season 5, Episode 18: ‘Disbanded’

Oliver returns to the team mentally broken by Prometheus. As we saw at the end of Episode 17, he tells the team that he is shutting it down and demands that they all go home and insists that both he and his crusade are over. His next step is to completely break things off with Susan Williams telling her that what happened to her was done by Prometheus but it was done because of who Oliver really is and he doesn’t want to touch her life that way. Next up on Oliver’s list? Killing Prometheus once and for all. To that end, he reaches out to his friend Anatoly and asks that the Bratva kill Adrian Chase.

Anatoly says he has brought his best men to Star City but he insists on partial payment upfront to show good faith on Oliver’s part after how things went the last time that the Bratva came to town. Oliver agrees. Meanwhile, Diggle along with Curtis, Rene, Dinah & Felicity all gather at Felicity’s apartment to try and figure out what to do next. Felicity decides to go and see if HELIX can help uncover some connection showing Adrian Chase is Prometheus while Diggle and the others decide to continue the fight with some equipment borrowed from A.R.G.U.S. No sooner do they get their new gear than they are alerted to a break-in at a pharmaceutical company. The group heads out only to discover that it is the Bratva stealing drugs used for treating diabetes and Anatoly also informs them that he has “permission” to steal the drugs from Oliver Queen himself.

This news leads to another confrontation between Oliver and Diggle who insists that he is here for Oliver and knows that whatever Prometheus did to him, that Oliver can find his way back from it. Oliver reminds Diggle that he ordered the team to stand down and warns him not to interfere with the Bratva again. But interfere they do. This time they intercept the Bratva before they can kill Adrian Chase as he is being escorted to a safe house by the Star City PD. They not only succeed in stopping the Bratva from killing Chase, but Mr. Terrific also manages to use his T-Spheres to hack Adrian’s image scrambler so that Felicity can reverse engineer the tech that keeps him cloaked from video surveillance and help prove that he and Prometheus are one and the same. The only problem is that the hardware still needs to be hacked before it can be used to show the police. To that end, Curtis and Felicity break into Kord Industries which made the image scrambler in the first place.

Diggle finally convinces Oliver that he is not beyond redemption no matter what kind of monster he thinks he is, but that he has to be willing to work for it. Reluctantly, Oliver agrees to rejoin the team and, shunning his Green Arrow costume for a plain ski mask and stealth suit, he helps Diggle, Dinah & Wild Dog stop the Bratva from stealing the other drug they need to combine with the first one they stole to make synthetic opium. As a result, a wedge is now permanently driven between Oliver and Anatoly. This is very sad when contrasted with the flashback scenes showing Oliver as “The Hood” and Anatoly’s Bratva pulling one last heist of medical supplies to help sick children in Russia. Oliver decides that he must go back to Lian Yu so he has a plausible story to tell people about where he has been for the last 5 years. Anatoly worries what he will become without Oliver around.

Finally, the image of Adrian Chase taking off his mask to reveal that he is Prometheus is unscrambled and given to the SCPD who forward it to the Federal Marshals guarding Chase. But before they can apprehend him, he kills the marshals and escapes. To me this was another fantastic episode due in no small part to the acting of Stephen Amell. His internal torment was played out just perfectly with his downward-turned eyes, his softer tone of voice and through his interactions with those around him. I also truly felt saddened by the nature of the change his relationship with Anatoly took at the end of the episode. The whole season’s worth of flashbacks cemented this image of the two of them as true friends and the impact of their final scene of tonight’s episode was not lost on me. A perfect setup by the writers that played out in the long game with a solid emotional impact here at the end of the season. (I’m actually more saddened by Oliver and Anatoly’s friendship ending than I was when Felicity broke off her engagement to Oliver. LOL!) Overall, I would rate this episode a 7.5. Now all I have to do is see if I can survive the wait until April 25th when new episodes return!!!

Review of ‘Arrow’ Season 5, Episode 17: ‘Kapiushon’

The 5th Season of ‘Arrow‘ may be the best the show has been since Season 2 as far as overall story telling goes. There has been the occasional stumble along the way, but over all this has been a very enjoyable season especially from a comic book aficionado’s  perspective. The 17th episode entitled ‘Kapiushon’ is certainly no exception. We pick up right where we left off with Oliver as the prisoner of Adrian Chase who has been revealed as Prometheus and who we now know was trained by Talia Al Ghul to exact revenge on Green Arrow for killing her father, Ra’s Al Ghul, at the end of the 3rd season.

From the beginning, Adrian/Prometheus is torturing Oliver trying to get him to “confess.” Oliver, unfortunately, is at a loss as to what it is he is meant to be confessing. And so the torturing continues with Prometheus putting three arrows into Oliver just as Green Arrow did to Prometheus’ father. Next, Adrian brings in Evelyn Sharp who had been working with Team Arrow until she betrayed them at the request of Prometheus. Adrian brings a clearly broken Evelyn into Oliver’s cell and puts a knife between them saying that if Oliver kills her, then Adrian will let him go unless Evelyn kills Oliver, in which case he will let her go. When she is unable to kill Oliver and Oliver refuses to kill her, Adrian breaks Evelyn’s neck in front of Oliver and reminds him that everything and everyone he comes into contact with ends up dead and that it’s only a matter of time before Felicity & Diggle end up the same way.

This episode is a departure from other episodes in the series in that the majority of the action is centered in the flashback portion which end up reflecting back to the moments we see in the present day of Oliver’s torture by Prometheus. In the flashbacks, we see that Anatoly is promoted to Pakhan of the Bratva after Oliver’s “new identity” helps Anatoly’s faction wipe out the competition. This leads to a crossroads for Anatoly where he must decide whether or not to honor the Bratva’s deal with Constantine Kovar. A decision made easier when Anatoly overhears a deal Kovar has made with an American named Malcolm Merlyn that will allow Kovar to kill key government officials at his casino. Needless to say that brings us to a final showdown between Oliver’s internal demon (aka: The Hood) and Kovar in which Oliver apparently kills Kovar and finally gets vengeance for Taiana who died on the island last season.

In present day, the scenes of the flashback come to a head when Adrian finally gets Oliver to “confess” that he kills because he likes to kill and not because of his father’s list or because he has to kill to save lives. This admission on Oliver’s part appears to finally break him and, as Adrian promised, he is released now that he has confessed. He makes his way back to the base where he is greeted by Felicity, Curtis and Diggle and informs them that he is shutting everything down and that they are done.

Again, this episode was quite unique due to the emphasis on the flashbacks as a means of fleshing out the meat behind Oliver’s final admission that he kills because we likes it. The focus on the past as it comes closer to aligning with the beginning of the series is excellently done and it piques my curiosity about how the end of this season will show the timelines converge. Overall, since this show was so centered on Green Arrow and hardly showed any of the supporting cast members until the very end of the episode when Oliver made it back to HQ, it gave it the feel of a solo adventure that one would see in the “Green Arrow” comic series which I always enjoyed. Between the writing of this episode and the effect it will have on the remainder of the season and just due to the wonderful acting from Stephen Amell and Madison McLaughlin, I would rate this episode an 8 out of 10.

Review of ‘Arrow’ Season 5, Episode 16: ‘Checkmate’

This episode of ‘Arrow‘ sees Oliver finally learn the identity of Prometheus as none other than Adrian Chase. After traveling to a mountain top temple, Oliver confronts Talia who reveals to him that she is the one who trained Adrian Chase. When Oliver asks why she would do that, she confesses that her last name is Al Ghul which means that Oliver killed her father 2 years ago just before Adrian Chase came to her seeking revenge against The Arrow for killing his father.

Oliver returns to Star City and confronts Adrian who gloats about being 10 steps ahead the entire time and also tells Oliver that he is holding Susan Williams hostage so if Oliver kills him, then Susan also dies since he is the only one who knows where she it. meanwhile, the team is unable to contact Felicity because she is off getting to know her new friends in HELIX. She asks them for access to information that may help track down Susan’s location but they will only help if she helps them crack an NSA database on divert a U.S. Drone for them. Green Arrow and Spartan invade Adrian’s home to try to talk to his wife but Adrian anticipated that move as well and has the SCU waiting for them. Oliver and Diggle manage to escape but it puts them right back at square one in their standoff with Prometheus.

Felicity & Curtis manage to track down Susan’s location Oliver asks Diggle to make a stop on his way to the warehouse where the rest of the team goes to free Susan. After a small bomb goes off trapping Black Canary and Wild Dog, Green Arrow rescues Susan and finds Prometheus who takes off his mask in front of Oliver just as Spartan arrives with Adrian’s wife who is horrified to learn that her husband is “The Throwing Star Killer” (AKA: Prometheus). But rather than taking the chance that she could ruin his plan for revenge against Oliver, Adrian stabs his wife and kills her. Mr. Terrific manages to free Black Canary & Wild Dog and Spartan is able to get Mrs. Chase’s body outside but, after a fierce battle between Green Arrow and Prometheus, Talia shows up and disables Oliver with a drugged arrow to the leg.

Adrian returns to work claiming that Green Arrow killed his wife as revenge for City Hall’s tough stance against him and, with Oliver missing, there is nothing the team can do to stop him. Oliver awakens to find himself chained in a cell where Adrian promises to make him suffer as Talia looks on confirming Anatoli’s warning of what “this woman” and her ideals would end up doing to Oliver during the flashbacks to Russia.

Overall, this would a very solid episode with some great scenes and plot development leading up towards the big finale (which is just 5 episodes away!!). Josh Segarra is perfect in his portrayal of the smug, cutthroat, newly revealed Prometheus in a “makes-you-want-to-punch-him-in-the-face” kind of way. (Trust me, that’s a HUGE compliment.) Paul Blackthorne is always outstanding as Quentin and I am intrigued by the new direction they are taking with Felicity’s character. I’m glad to see that they are bringing her into a different setting other than the team’s stalwart tech genius and beginning to explore a new angle of her character while playing upon her hacktivist roots. Overall, I would rate this episode as a solid 7. Here’s hoping that the season finishes strong!

Review of ‘Arrow’ Season 5, Episode 15: ‘Fighting Fire with Fire’

This week’s episode of ‘Arrow‘ seemed to have it all: Mayor Oliver Queen fights impeachment, Vigilante returns, Mr. Terrific gets his T-Spheres AND…. we finally learn the identity of Prometheus. But one thing at a time. The episode opens with Oliver, Quentin, Thea and Adrian trying to determine the best course of action to make sure that Ollie stays in his position as Mayor of Star City. If he is impeached, then Prometheus wins. After leaving the initial impeachment hearings, Oliver’s limo is attacked by Vigilante who has decided that Mayor Queen’s cover up of Green Arrow’s murder of Detective Malone warrants more than just removal from public office. Luckily Dinah and Thea manage to keep Vigilante from killing Oliver until the SCPD arrive on the scene.

Meanwhile, Curtis has been working on his T-Spheres which are high tech devices for both offense and defense. When Dinah finds a piece of Vigilante’s mask containing specialized circuitry, Curtis realizes his T-Spheres (don’t call them his “balls”) can lock in on the origin signal and track Vigilante back to his hideout. While they are working on implementing this plan, Vigilante has a run in with Prometheus who warns Vigilante to stay away from Oliver Queen. After a short-lived but fierce battle, Prometheus unmasks to reveal his true identity. (No spoilers from me. Go watch the episode already!)

Intermixed between flashback scenes of Oliver’s time in Russia helping to save Anatoly by proving Gregor was siphoning funds from the Bratva for his own purposes, we see Diggle try to convince Felicity to give up her connection to Helix before she gets burned. This theme of “getting too close to the fire” resonates with Thea’s story arc as well and we see her wrestle with the idea of blackmailing a city council member whose swing vote could potentially save Oliver’s political career. After a public speech in which Oliver declares the cover-up was designed to keep the public from knowing that Green Arrow had become a cop killer, the vote comes back against impeaching Oliver (as Diggle, Wild Dog and Mr. Terrific keep Vigilante from assassinating him). Thea decides that she needs to leave and feels she’s traded blackmail and politics for arrows and knives. Oliver accepts her resignation just as Felicity decides to go full-throttle into the game with Helix and Adrian Chase approaches the newly re-instated reporter Susan Williams about a very important story he needs her to tell.

Overall, this was one of the more solid episodes in a very strong season for ‘Arrow’. We had the return of Vigilante (who I always loved in the comics) AND we got to see a classic villain vs villain fight as he squared off against Prometheus. Also, mainly because I am a huge fan of Mr. Terrific in the comics, I was ridiculously excited to see the show introduce his T-Spheres as a means of bringing him even closer to the realized comic character. Between the excellently paced action and the underlying drama, I would give this particular episode a solid 9 out of 10 and I can’t wait to see where the story continues to go from here.