Arrow, Season 4, Episode 21: Monument Point
While the previous few episodes of Arrow has been tenuous, this one is amazing. It definitely outshines the last Flash and Legends of Tomorrow episode as far as pre-season-finale episodes go. Everything comes to a head in this episode, tying in a lot of the loose threads we've had in this season. We've got Darhk's master plan finally revealed and put into action, which is basically launch all nukes, hunker underground and repopulate the earth. But the large amount of death will also serve to power Damian Darhk up thanks to the nature of his magic. The whole mayoral thing, plus the emphasis on the ley lines, also ended up factoring to why Darhk's plans involved putting Ruve in the mayoral office.
A lot of old characters return in this episode. Lyla and ARGUS were relevant, thanks to the events of last episode, and previous season's miniboss villain Brick returns and hangs out with Murmur as HIVE's hitmen. Well, they certainly are far more impressive than just a faceless army of Ghosts. Anarky even returns after his numerous appearances this season, having infiltrated the underground utopia dome where Thea is, and it's definitely a cameo that makes sense. Oh, and finally, Felicity's little fight with Calculator in a previous two-parter this season also becomes really relevant as the Calculator ended up being important in this episode. Also, just like Oliver, Felicity gets fired from being head of Palmer Tech, which is hilariously appropriate.
It's a great, tightly-written episode, with the writers juggling no less than six villains in one episode, plus all the nonsense with Baron Reiter in the flashback (which still goes nowhere -- basically Tatiana gets possessed by Reiter through the idol). Darhk takes a bit of a back-seat, content to allow his new goons Murmur and Brick assault the place where the Calculator and Felicity are trying to sabotage the nuclear bombing. Presumably he needed to be at the ley line convergence place in order to pull off his demonic ritual thing.
And, really, none of the minor villains got shafted! Anarky is still as insanely fun as ever, breaking out that fun three-piece staff and getting a lot of great lines with Thea, who he views as his 'mommy' for turning him into, well, this unhinged version of the character. I am still pissed that this Anarky has little to nothing in common with his source counterpart, but he's still an entertaining villain, even if we really should've had an outing or two more to really justify his obsession with Thea. It's certainly far more interesting for Thea's plotline to have this actually-relevant villain be an opponent for her instead of just sitting on a table being passive-aggressive with Malcolm and his new Winter Soldier arm. I thought the boyfriend and Anarky's fixation with removing this controlling influence was kind of dumb, and Alex dies... but honestly I forgot Alex exists most of the time. The whole scene is a great moment for Thea, certainly... one that really would've had more impact if Alex had been, y'know, relevant.
Brick and Murmur got decent fight scenes too, though Murmur, on account of being just a dude with a stitched up mouth, really didn't do much other than be this elite mook who Diggle couldn't manage to catch before he got up to shoot Kuttler in the arm. Brick was a lot of fun, with him learning not to talk back to Darhk, pulling off his 'shoot me in me head and you live' game with Calculator, and his fight scene with Oliver is pretty great.
Calculator and Felicity are great fun together. There was no reason why Curtis Holt wasn't around to help Felicity, and I thought a throwaway line of dialogue would've been good, but hey, we got the two of them in a hilarious villain alliance to steal from Felicity's old company. It's a far more organic and less repetitive interaction than the ones we had for Malcolm and Thea weekly. Calculator's motivations are still in suspect -- is he seeking to profit, just not wanting to die, or is he genuine in his desire to reconnect with his daughter? He does take a bullet in the end for Felicity, but we'll see.
Felicity is great in this episode, proving that her character works best when she's not bogged down with time-consuming romantic plots. Her moments with her father and mother and the complicated feeling she has for Calculator, as well as the fact that, y'know, they have to save the world... it's all great stuff, and especially the ending.
At the end, they managed to stop all but one of the nuclear bombs, and I do love how they didn't actually win. It's a Pyrrhic victory, with Felicity diverting the nuke from Monument Point to a different suburban district, killing 'merely' thousands instead of millions. Felicity only got to the nuke when it's already close to impact, and can't, like, lob it into a desert or a sea or something, and Felicity's shaken expression when she realized she just played god, essentially, and chose who lives and who dies, is great acting. We've never had this kind of moral ambiguity before, the closest to it in the show being the lives that Oliver took on the island or pre-Tommy's-death. And when it's the ever-optimistic Felicity that has to deal with the consequences as opposed to ol' broody-face Oliver? It's going to be interesting.
The really weak point in this episode was Donna and Quentin's scene, really, where Donna takes a five-year-old mentality to 'you should not lie!' It's different when you're lying about someone else's daughter being dead, or when you're lying about a secret baby to your future wife, or when you're lying about your superhero identity. That bit Quentin did was just, well, basically a formality so he can return to the force, and it just kind of is dumb for Donna to put so much emphasis on such a naive worldview.
Oh, and the flashbacks, really, which was stretched to the breaking point, where once more in five episodes straight Oliver and Taiana exchanged bullets with Reiter, ran around while he did some idol voodoo magic, and repeats the same thing next episode. There really isn't an emotional or tense component to the flashbacks at all, with Reiter being a very bland villain, and Taiana being a very bland supporting character.
Overall, though, it's a very cohesive plot, with little that annoyed me, a lot of great well-utilized cameos and a great emotional ending with Felicity being forced to make the tough calls. Next episode, Green Arrow and the Spartan battle a soul-empowered Damian Darhk. Keep up this good work, Arrow! It's episodes like this that really demonstrate why sometimes Arrow has enough quality to last four seasons and more.
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