Arrow, Season 5, Episode 12: Bratva
One of the burning questions I have with Anatoli Knyazev returning in the flashbacks after two seasons of being absent is whether he'll have any bearing on the plot in the present day. It's been some time since we've seen jolly ol' Anatoly in the present day, after all, so it turns out that, yes, we're seeing Anatoly again. And we get a bit of a follow-up to the Diggle subplot with General Walker breaking free and basically going rogue which really makes me wonder why we needed Diggle re-imprisoned again for this plot to go on. But oh well.
Walker serves as the enemy in this episode, but he's not really important. Neither is Anatoly, to be honest -- in the present day he did have a couple of memorable scenes with Oliver, but the focus of this episode is on generally developing Oliver, Diggle and Felicity, and the character growth they've developed. It's a big too in-your-face for my liking, though... Felicity's big thing was that she used the Pandora information dump to get information to blackmail people, something that Rory finds unnervingly immoral. Though honestly? Compared to Oliver stooping to helping the Bratva beat up their rivals, or Diggle beating a prisoner half to death, fake-threatening someone who's not exactly squeaky-clean is way, way more innocent and Rory's just overreacting. It's definitely very welcome for Felicity this season to deal with things that are outside the romantic drama balloon, what with having to face Rory earlier this season, and now dealing with this Helix/Pandora thing. The mysterious Helix organization seems to know what she's doing, and Felicity seems intent on making even more use of Pandora.
Diggle's character progression basically had him beat a prisoner to death, showing how absolutely angry the dude is, before choosing not to pull the trigger on Walker despite the man making the same threats to his family that Andy Diggle did. Oliver's speech about how Diggle and Felicity are the better parts of the team are well done, though the execution on Diggle's part is blindingly obvious. Oliver, meanwhile, is forced once more to face the sins of his past as Anatoli punches Oliver in the face in one of the most hilarious fake-outs ever, blaming Oliver for betraying and causing the death of Bratva member Alexi Leonov from season two. It's a very interesting dynamic where Oliver and Anatoly's long past causes Anatoly to be willing enough to help out, even bringing an army of Bratva for the final battle (though, y'know, stopping a nuclear bomb from killing everyone is probably a good incentive for Anatoly to help anyway), but now wants a tit-for-tat for his services, citing that Oliver's help with Gregor (presumably shown in a future flashback this season) has absolved him of Oliver causing Leonov's death, but this means that everything between the two of them is now back to favour-for-favour.
Anatoly's favour this time around is relatively tame, basically asking Oliver to beat up a bunch of competitors and it doesn't seem like Oliver actually killed anyone, but Anatoly notes how vows are for life, noting that, no, as much as Anatoly is a 'devil you know' kind of deal, he's not going to let Oliver off just like that. It's a nice little nod to how Oliver destroyed his relationship with the Bratva during his obsessive hunt for Slade Wilson and his big 'I won't kill' creed in the second season, and while on the surface Anatoly and Oliver seems to have made nice this time around the looming threat of Anatoly asking something more... violent from Oliver is still there.
Ragman, meanwhile, hasn't really been doing much since... oh, the Tobias Church arc, I guess? He's easily the most powerful member of Team Arrow, being a mystically-empowered invulnerable metahuman, and honestly I don't think the show ever really makes a good argument as to why they didn't just sic Ragman on Prometheus the moment the two of them meet, beyond general 'Ragman's on the other end of the city!' This mission gives him a bit more focus, especially his interactions with Felicity. When she fails to disarm the nuclear bomb, Felicity proposes to fly it to a less populated area, something that Ragman strongly objects to because this was how Havenrock happened. Ragman unleashes his rag powers to contain the blast, and in the process this robs him of his powers. Boo! Ragman promises to return, though, and thinning out the cast a little after Dinah's introduction and build-up last episode is probably for the best -- Ragman's not doing much anyway, and the cast's so crowded that we haven't even seen Thea for the past two or three episodes.
Dinah gets a couple of cool action scenes and her talk to get Oliver out of his funk, stating that he can't just mope, is somewhat decent. Right now the show's just letting her settle in. There's a very weird B-plot of Wild Dog helping Quentin out in preparing for his interview against Susan Williams, and the equally strange reveal that Quentin actually inspired Wild Dog when he was a kid -- I guess it explains why Rene is so uncharacteristically patient and willing to help, but it's all kind of weird. I am also very uninvested in Susan Williams, or her attempts at uncovering the identity of Green Arrow, or her sleeping with Oliver Queen, at all. She's so uninteresting.
Walker serves as the enemy in this episode, but he's not really important. Neither is Anatoly, to be honest -- in the present day he did have a couple of memorable scenes with Oliver, but the focus of this episode is on generally developing Oliver, Diggle and Felicity, and the character growth they've developed. It's a big too in-your-face for my liking, though... Felicity's big thing was that she used the Pandora information dump to get information to blackmail people, something that Rory finds unnervingly immoral. Though honestly? Compared to Oliver stooping to helping the Bratva beat up their rivals, or Diggle beating a prisoner half to death, fake-threatening someone who's not exactly squeaky-clean is way, way more innocent and Rory's just overreacting. It's definitely very welcome for Felicity this season to deal with things that are outside the romantic drama balloon, what with having to face Rory earlier this season, and now dealing with this Helix/Pandora thing. The mysterious Helix organization seems to know what she's doing, and Felicity seems intent on making even more use of Pandora.
Diggle's character progression basically had him beat a prisoner to death, showing how absolutely angry the dude is, before choosing not to pull the trigger on Walker despite the man making the same threats to his family that Andy Diggle did. Oliver's speech about how Diggle and Felicity are the better parts of the team are well done, though the execution on Diggle's part is blindingly obvious. Oliver, meanwhile, is forced once more to face the sins of his past as Anatoli punches Oliver in the face in one of the most hilarious fake-outs ever, blaming Oliver for betraying and causing the death of Bratva member Alexi Leonov from season two. It's a very interesting dynamic where Oliver and Anatoly's long past causes Anatoly to be willing enough to help out, even bringing an army of Bratva for the final battle (though, y'know, stopping a nuclear bomb from killing everyone is probably a good incentive for Anatoly to help anyway), but now wants a tit-for-tat for his services, citing that Oliver's help with Gregor (presumably shown in a future flashback this season) has absolved him of Oliver causing Leonov's death, but this means that everything between the two of them is now back to favour-for-favour.
Anatoly's favour this time around is relatively tame, basically asking Oliver to beat up a bunch of competitors and it doesn't seem like Oliver actually killed anyone, but Anatoly notes how vows are for life, noting that, no, as much as Anatoly is a 'devil you know' kind of deal, he's not going to let Oliver off just like that. It's a nice little nod to how Oliver destroyed his relationship with the Bratva during his obsessive hunt for Slade Wilson and his big 'I won't kill' creed in the second season, and while on the surface Anatoly and Oliver seems to have made nice this time around the looming threat of Anatoly asking something more... violent from Oliver is still there.
Ragman, meanwhile, hasn't really been doing much since... oh, the Tobias Church arc, I guess? He's easily the most powerful member of Team Arrow, being a mystically-empowered invulnerable metahuman, and honestly I don't think the show ever really makes a good argument as to why they didn't just sic Ragman on Prometheus the moment the two of them meet, beyond general 'Ragman's on the other end of the city!' This mission gives him a bit more focus, especially his interactions with Felicity. When she fails to disarm the nuclear bomb, Felicity proposes to fly it to a less populated area, something that Ragman strongly objects to because this was how Havenrock happened. Ragman unleashes his rag powers to contain the blast, and in the process this robs him of his powers. Boo! Ragman promises to return, though, and thinning out the cast a little after Dinah's introduction and build-up last episode is probably for the best -- Ragman's not doing much anyway, and the cast's so crowded that we haven't even seen Thea for the past two or three episodes.
Dinah gets a couple of cool action scenes and her talk to get Oliver out of his funk, stating that he can't just mope, is somewhat decent. Right now the show's just letting her settle in. There's a very weird B-plot of Wild Dog helping Quentin out in preparing for his interview against Susan Williams, and the equally strange reveal that Quentin actually inspired Wild Dog when he was a kid -- I guess it explains why Rene is so uncharacteristically patient and willing to help, but it's all kind of weird. I am also very uninvested in Susan Williams, or her attempts at uncovering the identity of Green Arrow, or her sleeping with Oliver Queen, at all. She's so uninteresting.
The past flashbacks are the strongest part of this episode, I think, which isn't something I thought I'll ever say. Talia is training Oliver more, helping to flesh out, well, basically what he ends up doing in Arrow's first season. Oliver gets to realize the importance of the list and even takes out the drug supplier responsible for the drug that he saw distributed in Starling City last season. Add that to the dissension within Bratva itself with Gregor having Anatoly beat up (with the latter noting that there's nothing to do within Bratva rules due to their rank difference), and Oliver's basically pulled in several directions to take down Kovar and Gregor.
Overall, though, a pretty solid episode all around. There are some parts that didn't quite work for me -- Diggle's story, Quentin's subplot, Susan Williams -- but all in all the episode is more hit than miss, even though we seem to lose Ragman for the forseeable future. Boo.
Overall, though, a pretty solid episode all around. There are some parts that didn't quite work for me -- Diggle's story, Quentin's subplot, Susan Williams -- but all in all the episode is more hit than miss, even though we seem to lose Ragman for the forseeable future. Boo.
DC Easter Eggs Corner:
- Alexi Leonov was a Bratva member that appeared several times throughout the first and second seasons of Arrow, whose attempts at asking Oliver for favours per Bratva tradition ends up being rebuffed by Oliver multiple times until Leonov threatens that Oliver is 'no longer Bratva'. He met his end at the hands of Slade Wilson.
- Markovia, fictional state and home of the DC superheroes Terra and Geo-Force, has been mentioned several times in Arrow as a country that tried to buy different types of superweapons before.
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