Arrow, Season 5, Episode 6: So it Begins
No one told me Dolph freaking Lundgren was going to play a character in Arrow! This random 'Konstantin Kovar' dude that I just brushed of in previous episodes as obscure antagonist of the season is played by Dolph Lundgren, and he's suddenly like a dozen times more interesting than he was before. The flashbacks this episode was a bit of a step-down from the previous ones due to it moving forward at a relatively rushed speed from 'Oliver hanging out with Anatoly as a Bratva member' to 'Oliver is part of a sting operation' to 'Oliver meets Kovar', but if that's what it takes to bring this mysterious Konstantin Kovar from this mysterious boogeyman into an actual character, then, well, why not?
In any case, this episode is a significant step-down from the previous episode's awesomeness regarding the whole Tobias Church plotline and all the members being thrown in play. We have Prometheus finally presented to the main cast as this super-vengeful villain that goes around terrorizing the city by murdering random moms with shurikens and blowing up trains and just generally inciting panic in large areas causing people to shoot stuff. That bit where Team Arrow had to stop a huge chaotic riot is a very realistic scene that hits a bit too close to home for me, which is why it's so effective.
Prometheus is presented as actually doing something, and the fact that his whole killing spree ends up being a veiled message to Green Arrow, is very dark and yet, at the same time, very appropriate. Oliver's flashback sequences is taking Oliver Queen into a very dark place, breaking him down into the pessimistic, kill-them-all vigilante that he was in season one. And thus it's appropriate that the plotline for the season to feature the last leg of Oliver's flashback to show the decisions that Oliver Queen committed throughout season one as the Hood would come back to bite him in the ass.
As I keep preaching, Arrow's season one told a good story -- it just was not a particularly good Green Arrow story. While the later seasons have done a decent job at turning the grim and gritty murder-vigilante into just one with constant angsting, this is the first where we've actually properly acknowledged Oliver being a straight-up serial killer in season one, with Prometheus calling Oliver out by targeting random civilians with the same initials as the names on the List.
A combination of Oliver, Diggle and Felicity keeping secrets from the B-team and the revelation that Oliver is both the Hood and the Arrow (two things that the B-team didn't know), plus the existence of the List, really hit the B-team hard. Other than Artemis, the B-steam appear to recover remarkably quickly from the revelation, but the disgust and uncertainty has definitely been made clear. It's also something that intrepid reporter Susan Williams can potentially dig up and confront Oliver Queen with if she eventually does dig up Oliver Queen's second life. It's definitely a very interesting direction to steer the show into, and confronting Oliver Queen's season one sins is definitely one thing that makes this episode -- and all future ones -- far more interesting than just stopping HIVE, the League of Assassins or having a piss-fight with Felicity for the 52nd time.
This episode wasn't exactly super-great. It was serviceable, mostly because the sub-plots felt so throwaway. There's a random bit with Thea, Oliver and Quentin having to rent out like a concert or something? The Susan Williams subplot is just there to remind us that it exists. There's the subplot with Felicity and her ultra-supportive boyfriend. There's a small subplot of Thea discovering that, surprise surprise, Quentin Lance is actually still drinking. There's a scene near the end that shows Quentin with a wounded arm and one of Prometheus's blade shuriken things, but I am thoroughly unconvinced that Quentin would have the skills or resources to be Prometheus, unless, like Malcolm Merlyn reached out and trained him off-screen between the two seasons.
Whoever Prometheus is, though, it appears that he has relatively little to do with the comic book character of the same name beyond being a super-competent martial artist, and while he does leave a trail of police corpses last episode, he did fail to do anything to Artemis (arguably the least lethal of Team Arrow, Felicity notwithstanding) other than knocking her down, and retreated at the sight of Green Arrow. Despite me being unconvinced with Prometheus's skill, there is an aura of sinister personal-ness between Green Arrow and Prometheus that makes Prometheus a lot more similar to Slade Wilson rather than Merlyn, Ra's or Darrhk. For Prometheus, this is personal, even moreso than Slade.
So, who's Prometheus? The red herring seems to point to Quentin Lance, and if we're digging up season one characters, then a resurrected Tommy Merlyn would be cool, if unlikely. Other than that, though, who else (other than the obvious similarities to Malcolm Merlyn) would fit the shoes? Adrian Chase? Felicity's new boyfriend? I mean, Arrow has done its share of introducing love interests and then immediately show them as evil. Like, every single guy Thea has dated other than Roy Harper turned out to be evil.
Artemis gets relative center stage after being barely a background prop in the past five episodes, and she's basically the angriest out of the lot. Curtis has a longer history with Oliver and while angry, isn't ready to immediately throw him under the bus. Rory is the peacemaker and would rather do something productive other than infighting (plus, he's had his own peaceful resolution of a conflict with Felicity). Rene might be the snarkiest and the most immediate to voice his concerns during the revelation, but he's also not arguing against Oliver at all, a result of his... de-fanging, of sorts, in the past two episodes.
This puts Artemis, who was stopped from being a killer by the Green Arrow, in a unique position where she finds out that the same man who stopped her from killing criminals because that would dishonour the Black Canary... is also a serial killer a couple of years ago. It didn't really amount to much, ultimately, other than a larger focus on showing her fighting and talking, and it hardly compares to what Ragman and Wild Dog went through in the previous episodes, but some characterization is better than no characterization.
So yeah, while it might be a step down in quality compared to the last two or three episodes, it's certainly still a great episode to watch.
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