Originally Aired: May 13th, 2015
So we’ve finally come to the end of what some would say is a mediocre season for Arrow, but I have always stayed positive for this season and let’s be fair, with the addition of The A.T.O.M., Arsenal/Speedy, Flash Team-Up’s and Arrow’s first metahumans, I’d say this was a good season. Wednesday’s season finale had almost all of those things all packed into one episode but in the end unfortunately left a bit to be desired.
The promos and clips for this finale were a bit misleading. The promos loved showing that The Flash would be appearing in this episode and made it look like he would be helping Team Arrow throughout this episode, but like in this week The Flash team-up, we got at best 3 good minutes of The Flash. The rest of this episode was just concluding the plot that has been building up this whole second half of the season and leaves me feeling unsure at what a season 4 will bring.
WARNING: SPOILERS AFTER THE JUMP!
So this episode begins with the cliffhanger that last episode left us with. What we’re given here is some pretty hard to believe surprising that being that Malcolm has inoculated the whole team (and Thea later) from the Alpha-Omega virus using what looks like scotch tape. I found it a bit of a stretch on the imagination to resolve the situation like this and kind of wish they had just said Malcolm or Oliver switched the vials somehow. If they were inoculated, why did they all pass out? Continuing we get a great couple minutes where The Flash runs in and saves the day, but how did Felicity have means of contacting him? Why leave her in a cell with her phone? I mean she was supposed to die so it wouldn’t matter but she had it and I assume Barry tracked her cell through GPS and took out all of Nanda Parbat in seconds. Some of Barry’s jokes were fantastic and well timed but after Barry leaves due to him needing to resolve this with Dr. Wells, I kind of was left feeling that Barry could have gone to Nanda Parbat at any time this season and stopped Ra’s in seconds… right? Oh well! Getting past all that, it was a fun opening scene.
Next we come to Oliver and Nyssa riding in the Ra’s Jet (or Al Ghul Airlines?) when the engines start exploding. Ra’s assumes it was Nyssa’s doing, which was a bit crazy but Oliver ends up standing up to Ra’s and revealing it was his plan all along. While this scene was a bit odd and unclear as to why Oliver would blow his cover like this, we later come to find out he meant for Ra’s and everyone – including himself – to die in a fiery plane crash. Ra’s ends up taking this planes only parachute while Oliver and Nyssa are force to crash land the plane. This scene was okay for me, but it seemed far more bad ass and exciting in the promos we saw at the end of last episode than it really was.
Oliver returns to Team Arrow that is coming up with a game plan and immediately gets punched by Diggle. While Diggle doesn’t forgive Oliver, the rest of the team ends up agreeing to trust Oliver’s plans and begins hunting for the virus carriers. Thea joins the fight wearing the red hood Roy left her and essentially cements herself in as Speedy for the rest of the series. We get some interesting action here where the team can’t let the four infected spill blood, and unfortunately one slit his own throat. While Felicity and Ray end up finding a way to inoculate people via nanobots, Felicity’s arc was basically her love for Oliver is overwhelming enough that she would let thousands die over Oliver and that Ray should go save him. When Ray is sensible and realistic, to no surprise Felicity wears the A.T.O.M. suit and immediately knows how to use it well enough to save Oliver at the end.
That being said the final fight between Ra’s and Oliver wasn’t that exciting. They met on a dam in the middle of nowhere and face off, which leads to Oliver almost getting beat, but then uses Ra’s own move of catching the blade and stabbing his opponent against him, leading to Oliver giving Ra’s his final rights and goodbye as Ra’s gives him the ring of Ra’s Al Ghul. I’m okay with the fight overall don’t get me wrong, I just feel it was a bit anti-climactic. Then a sniper from a squad of SWAT that came when some random person called in reporting a sword fight on the dam shoot Oliver a few good times in the chest, which didn’t kill him because League armor.
The flashbacks in this episode were of Akio’s expedited cremation then of Oliver finally torturing General Schrieve to the point of unconsciousness. We see Mateo leave his pleading wife to go eventually join the guild, and see Oliver decide that the man who was able to torture a man, could go back and be a hero and live around his family after what he had done. We don’t really get any hints about where Ollie will head off to next, but he’ll eventually have to get involved with the Russian gang then head back to the island at some point.
This episode ends with Oliver quitting Team Arrow and taking Felicity on a long overdue vacation. We get a few set ups for next season about Diggle needing a mask, Thea being called Speedy, Ray Palmer possibly dying in an explosion caused when he was trying to get his suit to shrink (like you see in the DC’s Legends of Tomorrow First Look), and Malcom getting his part of the deal with Oliver and becomes the new Ra’s Al Ghul. I really don’t get why on Earth Oliver would give Malcolm Merlyn so much influence and power, which just two years ago he tried to destroy half of Starling City. Honestly… Oliver should have just accepted the role of Ra’s, changed the rules, brought Felicity with him, set up League HQ in Starling and used his ninja army for good. Leaving the League in Malcolm’s hands will come back to bite him. The last bit we can assume of season 4 is that Damian Dahrkk is the big bad. Which kind of sucks because from what we know, he’s just another Ra’s Al Ghul he may be a bit more caught up with modern times.
While I feel this ending was a bit rushed with some lazy writing, I think overall this was a good season. Even an end like this episode can’t ruin arguably a fun and exciting story. Since we’re not left with many bread crumbs for next season, I guess I’m fine with that. Either way, I will be there, on season 4 premiere just as excited as I have been all season 3. In terms of my personal weekly battle between which is better between The Flash and Arrow, I’d have to say they’re tied. While The Flash had an incredibly exciting last 5 minutes, the first part of the show was bad enough to put it on the same level as this Arrow finale. Let me know in the comments or on Twitter what you thought of the finale! I’d love to talk with more fans of the show!
