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Arrow: Checkmate

Anatoly: "Why are you playing Robin Hood?"

I thought it was a jampacked episode, but it was jampacked with basically one thing: Prometheus.

Prometheus in this episode felt almost like a caricature of evil, and I still don't understand his plan, even though it was revealed. Is it to just mess with Oliver until Oliver becomes like Prometheus? Eh? He's a more successful villain than say Vandal Savage, but there is something off about him; as if he's just evil for the sake of being evil.

Like killing his own wife for no reason other than to set up Oliver one more time; instead of making him scarier, it sort of made him feel sad. Maybe he just didn't know how to react to her knowing the truth about him. Either way, he's clearly nuts and needs some serious therapy. Actually, so does Oliver. I mean, if it's good enough for Tony Soprano...

Oliver does always act out emotionally when it comes to his team getting in danger, or instead of the team this time, Susan. For a while now, I thought she might be allied with Prometheus, but no — she seems to be completely on the level. Maybe she's an acolyte of Talia's and she's playing the long game?

Speaking of Talia, she seems like a much scarier threat than Prometheus. I bet Prometheus is going to exit stage left pretty soon and she's going to take over as Big Bad, because honestly he feels kind of petty and small. Unless Oliver can reason with her, maybe explain how Ra's never gave him a choice? Probably not, but she doesn't seem evil so much as vengeful. But if that's the case, how can she possibly condone Prometheus' actions?

The only real other plot-line focused on Felicity, who is going deeper and deeper into the Helix hole, and I don't like it. The "quid pro quo" feels like a massive mistake. She's seems so desperate for something — I'm not sure what she's looking for with Helix, but it's clearly something she's not getting from the team. What bothers me more is a lot of those issues that she asked Helix to solve for her were things she would have been able to solve herself in previous seasons. Sure, it might've taken her longer, but really it seems to me that Helix needs her, not the other way around.

Does this have something to do with Felicity's father? Is it just her going down the same path as he did, or is she using Helix to fill a hole created by the loss of Billy and the breakup with Oliver? It feels like it's taking away her agency, needing these male figures to make herself whole. Unless I'm reading this the wrong way, which is possible.

Flashback:

It was exciting this week, finally taking out Gregor in a sudden death hockey match gun battle. Or did he? It's hard to tell. Oliver pulled the arrow out of Gregor's shoulder, which had to hurt and might kill him. Tune in next week?

Bits and quotes:

The police chief Pike was stabbed by Prometheus and is now in a coma after Oliver told him that it was Adrian.

Looks like Talia has officially transitioned from flashback to the current story, like Slade and Sara before her.

Liked the door transition with the bright light between Oliver and Anatoly in the flashback.

Quentin: "That son of a bitch."
Rene: "Yeah, I'd say that pretty much covers it."

While everything in the episode worked, it didn't really work for me.

2 out of 4 characters with father issues.
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Samantha M. Quinn spends most of her time in front of a computer typing away at one thing or another; when she has free time, she enjoys pretty much anything science fiction or fantasy-related.

3 comments:

  1. nice review. I might pick up this show again. Left off after season 2. How are the other DC shows? I haven't watched Supergirl since it was moved to the CW and I'm not hearing anything good about it. Was the Flash cancelled in season 3? Is Gotham still on?

    ReplyDelete
  2. Hi Anonymous,

    The other DC shows are trucking along. Arrow is having a good year after a less than stellar one.

    Flash wasn't cancelled, in fact it is the highest rated show on the CW. This season isn't quite as strong as season 2, but it is still a good show.

    Supergirl improved quite a bit over first season, when they switched to the new network the tone, action, effects, plots, and how they use characters changed for the better.

    Legends is way better then it's first season, with new characters I've grown to like and villains that... well lets just say they are the best of the best.

    I'm not currently caught up with Gotham, but from what I've read they are going full Batman rogues gallery and pushing the kid playing Bruce closer and closer to his masked persona. I'd be curious to catch up down the line, but I haven't had the time recently.

    I hope that helps.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Helix seems like setup for the next season Big Bad. They do have to work for somebody like a Blacklist type hacker supervillisn to afford this kind of big operation.

    So Talia is not Prometheus, she's the mastermind behind him. Please bring back Nyssa for some much needed sister against sister fighting. :)

    ReplyDelete

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