Sigh. Here we are again. It’s time for another thrilling episode of Arrow. But wait! This week is finally the big reveal about who dies in this season! You know, the thing they’ve been teasing since the very first episode all those months ago? Well, I can’t believe someone dying is the only thing that gets me excited about a show anymore, but as the theories run wild, let’s get into it!
SPOILERS AHEAD
We open up with Andy getting Diggle’s spare gun out of the safe. We all know that HIVE is now on to Andy as Malcolm approached him as the ‘cliffhanger’ last week and now he’s turning to Diggle to help him out. The team discusses the new information about Merlyn’s and Dahrk’s growing relationship and Olly fills them in on the fact that the island is from Lien Yu. Diggle wants to put Andy undercover as a double agent on this missile hijack mission that Merlyn reached out to him about but Oliver is hesitant to this. After Diggle insists Oliver trust Andy, he finally agrees to it. Oliver goes to the acceptance speech of Ruve Adams where Adams offers Laurel the District Attorney’s job – a cushy promotion.
The missile hijacking goes down and Andy’s intel was right on the money. Back in the Quiver, however, Malcolm arrives with a few League assassin’s in order to liberate the idol from the team. Laurel and Thea do their best to fight them off, but are overwhelmed. After Arrow and Diggle stop the heist, they realize it was too easy and return to find the idol taken by Merlyn.
Diggle wants to use his brothers in to help them track Merlyn, though Oliver has grown suspicious of Andy. Laurel warns Oliver not to accuse Andy without proof for that will irreparably damage his relationship with Diggle before she runs off to meet her father. He tells her that the promotion comes with strings and not just the kind that keep tabs on the evil ones. Laurel would have to give up her role as the Canary if she takes the job – something that she begins to give a lot of thought to. Andy tracks Malcolm and in an extremely confusing sequence, Andy gets shot by an arrow for some damn reason. Instead of being ingratiated to him, Oliver is even more suspicious now. Merlyn brings Dahrk the idol, but it’s missing a piece, making it useless unless they can fully put the idol back together.
During Andy’s meltdown over being exposed, Diggle reveals to him that they have the missing piece. In fact, Diggle hid it himself. Oliver tries to calmly tell Diggle to keep it a secret, but Diggle obviously trusts his brother. They all split up with Oliver going to run down one more lead. Laurel goes and has the cell block flipped to ensure that Dahrk doesn’t have the idol and they have a mutually threatening back and forth. I’m beginning to get a sneaking suspicion here – a disappointing suspicion. Arrow finds Andy tearing apart Diggle’s house looking for surveillance equipment. Arrow thinks he’s looking for the missing idol piece and begins to question him with extreme prejudice – which is a perfect time for Diggle to walk in. He pulls a gun on Arrow, siding with his brother over his masked friend.
Oliver and Diggle argue about Andy and Diggle is nonplussed by Oliver’s accusations and reams Oliver out about why Felicity really left him. Darhk’s minions get him the idol as well as arming all the other prisoners on the block. Oliver explains what happened and goes out of his way to convince Laurel to take the promotion and be the DA and be a hero without a mask. My suspicions grow. Back in Iron Heights, Darhk orchestrates a riot and takes hostages. The team is immediately alerted and roll out to take Darhk down and Laurel wanting this ‘one last time’ as the Canary. Aaaaaaaaand that just about seals the deal on who dies.
Lance makes a distraction by causing a scene with the police and the team, Diggle arriving with his brother in tow, sneaks into the prison. They begin to fight the inmates and make their way to Darhk. Thea does battle with Malcolm while the rest of the team goes to find the other villain. After a struggle, Darhk has Andy at gunpoint, forcing the team to drop their weapons. Malcolm gets the best of Thea, but leaves her alive. In a no surprise turn of events, Andy hands over the missing piece of the idol to Darhk, having never stopped working for HIVE. Darhk reveals that he knows everyone’s identities and is about to kill them when Thea arrives and buries two arrows in Darhk and the team renews it’s fighting. Darhk manages to make a blood sacrifice to the idol and his powers are rejuvenated. As he holds everyone else in a Force choke, he goes to Laurel, telling her that he’s fulfilling a promise to her father and he stabs her with an arrow.
Oliver rushes Laurel to the hospital where she’s immediately taken into surgery. Lance hears about the Canary’s injury in the station and manages to talk his way to going to the hospital. Laurel gets out of surgery and is fine and stable. She talks to everyone and asks for some time alone with Oliver. She tells him that he will always be the love of her life and then we can only see them talking through the window ‘for some reason’. Then the doctors rush back in as she flat lines and nothing can bring her back. The pronounce her dead at 11:59 and Oliver leaves the room to find Lance in the hallway and he breaks down, knowing what the look on Oliver’s face means.
In the flashbacks, Oliver and Tiana fight to free the other hostages while waxing philosophic about becoming monsters in order to survive. Oliver also reveals to her his feelings for Laurel. He then blows up the caves in order to trap Rieter and the idol underground, but Reiter has sacrifices with him, so I wouldn’t count him out just yet.
Okay, so that was it. The season long build to who the team was burying at the cemetery. It’s Laurel. Except for the fact that it isn’t. This isn’t the first episode of a TV show that I’ve ever seen in my whole life, so how to spot that she isn’t actually dead is pretty obvious. The very, very, very obvious build up to ‘killing’ her wasn’t enough lazy TV for the creative at Arrow as they decided to really not try at all for this one. So, let’s just acknowledge that they put zero effort into trying to hide that they were going to kill Laurel. When it actually came time for it, they then saved her at the hospital. Okay, this is getting weird for a death scene. But really, the cut the sound out while the camera looks in from outside? Really?
Then they cut into her immediately flat lining with Oliver doing the ‘oh no, I don’t know what happened’ routine (god I wish I was being sarcastic about that line). It’s like they just copy and pasted ‘fake death scene A’ from a generic script resource and plugged character names in. Then, there was the painful shot where they cut away to the clock that wasn’t moving and tried to play it off like it was innocuous. Sure, we always get a quick look at clocks in this show to firmly establish a sense of time. The show where people have day jobs and then fight crime all night. Establishing a time frame is the LAST thing this show wants to do unless it’s for a reason. There was absolutely nothing convincing about Laurel’s death. Nothing.
I’ve been saying for two whole seasons now, and this season in particular, that Laurel is the worst part of the show. When they started throwing the flags up to say that it was going to be her, my excitement over a character death escalated. The fact that they were going to write out a character that they haven’t known what to do with for years was best case scenario for me. Especially when they’ve been teasing this death for months. Actual months! It was for sure going to be permanent with all this build up. Right? Right? Hello? Is anyone actually in the writers room on this show anymore?
I cashed my chips in on this show months ago. I wrote this season off as a complete and utter disaster weeks ago. I said it hit rock bottom with the Speed Weed penned abortion from a few episodes ago. I was wrong. This. This is what rock bottom looks like. If you’re ever in an argument where you need to reference a show that used to be good but is now so completely bereft of creativity, originality, good storylines and interesting characters and you’re too young to get the ‘jumped the shark’ reference – this is the show. This is your example.
This episode isn’t saying goodbye to main character Laurel Lance, it’s saying goodbye to a show that I used to be excited to watch. We don’t need the funeral episode next week, we need someone to write a eulogy for four seasons of TV. Rest in Peace, Green Arrow. Maybe they can bring you back if the movie universe survives.
Doug Mercer reviews each week’s episode of Arrow, so stay tuned right here for more! Also be sure to check out our recent reviews of 11/22/63 and The Flash!