Last night, ‘Arrow’ gave us what may have been the best episode of the season thus far. All preparing us for next week’s Season 5 Finale! After having finally captured Adrian Chase (aka: Prometheus), Team Arrow can begin to relax and start planning for the future which includes celebrating Oliver’s birthday (with a cake from Lord Mesa Bakery – an inside joke but quite brilliantly played) and discussing summer plans. Quentin is worried because Rene didn’t show up to his custody hearing and Dinah is a no-show to Oliver’s surprise party. When Curtis leaves to check on Dinah, he is attacked which alerts the team that Prometheus must have someone on the outside who is picking off the team one-by-one. Quentin and Thea head to an ARGUS safe house and Oliver orders Felicity and John to leave the state.
That plan fails to work out when Evelyn and Black Siren along with Talia & The League of Assassins end up capturing all of them anyway. When Oliver confronts Prometheus about his friends’ whereabouts, Prometheus reveals that he also has Oliver’s son William. He promises to tell Oliver where everyone is once he is released. Oliver teams with Malcolm Merlyn to free Prometheus and then also brings Nyssa in to aid them in stopping Chase and freeing his friends. The trio realizes that Chase has taken his prisoners to Lian Yu and they head there themselves to get one more person to help them stop Prometheus once and for all – Slade Wilson.
This episode was about as perfect as it gets for me. It had the full roster of guest appearances & familiar faces, the classic superhero/supervillain team up, the struggle of doing what is right vs what is necessary and it’s all leading up to what promises to be an incredible season finale. I’ve been very impressed with this season overall and I believe that the writers, actors, fight choreographers, etc, have all upped their game significantly. This is especially important since Season 4 felt like such a disappointment for most of its run.
The flashback scenes in this episode with Kovar drugging and torturing Oliver on the island is set to bring everything full circle to where we first joined in for the start of Season 1. In the end, unless something goes terribly wrong with next week’s finale, I think Season 5 may go down in the books as possibly the strongest and most consistent season of ‘Arrow’ since Season 2. Given the immense amount of talent that this show has brought us over the past 5 years, that is really saying something and it speaks volumes about why this show is considered the touchstone of the DC TV Universe. Due to the strength of this episode, the phenomenal acting and the tense build-up that was perfectly orchestrated leading into the finale, this episode was a bullseye. Now have some cake!
