Arrow, Season 4, Episode 10: Blood Debts
Arrow had a great cliffhanger at the end of last year, so of course this episode goes back and shits all over it. I mean, it was a possibility that Felicity didn't receive a mortal wound, and it's not like she gets out of this unscathed, but after all the teasing about the body in the grave, about Felicity being shot and the cliffhanger scene being dramatic as all fuck, and this episode even replaying the "four months later" scene at the graveyard just to remind us... pulling the rug out and going 'lol gotcha' is just shitty writing. At the very least put Felicity in a coma for an episode or something, I dunno. She survives but is in a bad shape... and apparently she's going to be crippled for life, but she's not the one in the grave. Present-day Oliver is certainly angry and on the warpath thanks to Felicity's near-death experience, but honestly the whole thing with Felicity's near-death experience just felt poorly handled. I dunno.
It doesn't help that this episode really felt low-key. I mean, Flash opened the second half of its season with a relatively low-key episode, but it was well-written and well-paced. This one, not so much, and the key difference is how both shows had their cliffhangers. Arrow's last episode seemed to imply a sense of urgency, that Damian Darhk and HIVE is going forward with their plans and will be going on the frontal assault onto Oliver Queen and Green Arrow. But other than Oliver beating up a couple of faceless HIVE mooks, Darhk and his organization takes a backseat to a returning Anarky.
And Anarky, while entertaining, still doesn't really have much in common with the more philosophical and nuanced comic-book version of his character other than using a staff in combat and leaving that A symbol in red graffiti. Oh, and he gets a white version of Anarky's Greek-face mask thing, which I guess is something. Arrow's Anarky is at least a pretty decent character, an adaptation of the concept of anarchy itself, so at least points to the show for originality even if I don't particularly like it. Anarky is a wild card thrown into the battle between Team Arrow and HIVE... and honestly he's more a distraction than anything.
After finally deciding that Felicity's near-death is the moment where the kiddie gloves come off, Oliver gets Quentin to give up the information of Darhk's base, marches in... only to find Anarky has killed every HIVE mook in that base. And then the main plot is pushed aside in favour of this relatively less interesting side-quest as Team Arrow hunts down Anarky, catches him, and thanks to some disagreements between Oliver and Laurel (though nowhere as verbally violent as they normally are, for a change) Anarky gets captured by the police, let off, captured, and escapes. It's no fault of Anarky's character, of course. He's still a decently terrifying villain, terrorizing Darhk's family, able to gain intel on Darhk's whereabouts without an explanation, and having developed a slightly unhealthy obsession with Speedy, viewing each other as kindred spirits.
And indeed a good chunk of the episode does focus on Speedy, giving some nice moments where she talks to Laurel and, uh... Boyfriend Dude about her anger issues, and eventually overcoming them and showing that she is stronger than her bloodlust and that she's a better person than Anarky, able to control her urges to kill. And it's certainly an impressive feat since she actually does have some mystical powers that's causing her to need to kill, unlike Anarky who's just psychotic and emo over his burnt-up face. But is it the right time for an episode to focus so much on returning filler villain Anarky and developing Speedy, when really the main plot point should be more centralized on HIVE, Oliver and Felicity? The show just loses momentum and while the episode's Anarky plot isn't necessarily bad, the decision to show it at this point in the show is a strange one and not one that I thought was well done.
I guess setting Anarky loose to have a single and disposable madman take out the dangerous Damian Darhk, head of HIVE, is supposed to symbolize Oliver Queen giving into his rage and baser desires, and parallels Thea's own personal journey, and all that jazz, but still, it's a distraction. And while Oliver's initial plan is to storm Darhk's building -- alone, I might add, instead of bringing the entirety of Team Arrow, the League of Assassins, the Flash, John Constantine, Firestorm and the Hawks, or at least the first two if the powers-to-be doesn't allow the others to show up. When Green Arrow actually faces off against Darhk at the end, Darhk trounces Oliver as badly as he did before, and makes it clear that Darhk's mastery of the Force or whatever will absolutely overwhelm Oliver. So, uh, kinda bad planning on Oliver's part at the beginning of the episode.
John Diggle gets some nice moments being forced to talk to the stone wall that is Andy Diggle and not get any answers, but a quick talk with Lyla causes Diggle to take another approach and approach Andy like his brother instead of like a member of HIVE, which naturally gives them a hint on where to find Darhk. While Andy is still in a cage, and still kinda pissed at Diggle, they're at least playing cards which is something.
Felicity doesn't get much to do since, y'know, she's paralyzed and in and out of operation, but she does get a short, powerful moment where she almost breaks down because for a moment she thought Oliver is planning to leave her thanks to her disability. Oliver is, of course, going all 'hunting down Darhk is what Felicity would want', and in an unexpectedly subtle manner, Laurel, Diggle and Thea all nudge Oliver to at least pay Felicity a visit, because as strong as any human being can be, Felicity's still going to need emotional support from the person she loves the most. There's a nice sweet moment which almost mollifies my concerns with pacing, at least.
And while the whole point of the episode is apparently to give us a moral that no one should give in to their baser desires and kill -- as exemplified best by Thea refusing to shoot the psychotic Anarky in the head, and John Diggle getting some headway by using words, not fists -- the episode ends with Future!Felicity insisting that Future!Oliver needs to kill Darhk. Um. Okay, I guess Felicity can be dark if she wants to. It runs kinda contrary to the whole message of the episode, and it just odd all around to skip around to future scenes. Points to note is that Felicity isn't wearing her ring in that future scene, and it's just odd to show all this when really all they do is to add into the confusion because the whole Darhk arc has kinda slammed on the brakes as far as pacing and momentum goes.
Oh, and Darhk's family is as much HIVE as Darhk is, despite looking like innocent people caught in the crossfire at first. Darhk's wife actually is kinda pissed Darhk didn't kill Green Arrow then and there. Interesting, but still, ultimately all this achieves is just prolonging the conflict after the promised escalation.
Some shit goes on in the Island as Oliver and Taiana is brought by Conklin before Reiter, but Constantine's magic rune stops Reiter from killing Oliver. I don't give two shits, honestly.
Oh well, count your blessings, I guess. It's not a bad episode at all... it's just oddly-paced and the revelations done to the death tease end up being utter disappointments. The episode clearly works on its own merits. Anarky and Thea were quite strong this episode, and so was Diggle. Oliver and Felicity got a nice moment together. But overall pacing-wise the season has kinda pulled the brakes on what had been a very interesting series that built up HIVE, Darhk and the ghosts making their move. But whoops, this episode spent a good chunk hunting down a returning one-off villain, whose purpose in the grand scheme is just to give Darhk an excuse to stop doing anything interesting and sensible in the war for the next couple of episodes.
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