Arrow S05E14 Review: The Return of China White

Arrow, Season 5, Episode 14: The Sin-Eater

A pretty character-packed episode for Arrow where the show re-introduces not one, not two, but three villains -- China White, Cupid and Liza Warner, the latter being a villain I forgot even existed in the show, having only appeared once in a relatively throwaway episodic villain role. So instead of the two recurring characters China White and Cupid, of course Warner became the leader. Honestly, though, while we did get a very, very awesome all-out brawl between the forces of Team Arrow and the terrible trio, none of the three villains actually did anything super important. We could've replaced them with the Royal Flash Gang or three random one-note villains from season one and it'd have the same impact. Liza Warner caused Quentin to have a bit of a 'oh no I failed her rehabilitation because I was a hypocrite' but that really didn't matter all that much in the end because Quentin didn't make her evil, she's just using him as an excuse.

Neither Cupid nor China White really honestly did much -- we didn't even get any of Cupid's signature lovesick quotes, as one-note as they may be, and while season three's flashbacks have set up China White as someone that's apparently so dangerous that Amanda Waller was willing to blow up an entire passenger plane to get at her, she's barely more than a thug in this episode, and we didn't even get confirmation if that shot at the end killed her or not.

Other than the huge brawl at the end of the episode, the superheroics of this episode are actually the weak portions, with Oliver Queen in his Mayor Queen persona having the biggest meat of the story, investigating Prometheus's mother (or is she?) but any progress on the Prometheus storyline ends up being halted by all of this. When Susan comes too close to Oliver's identity, we see both Thea and Felicity having their hands dirty on different levels as they deal with Susan Williams. Felicity's a lot more innocent than Thea, only hacking into Susan's computer without actually doing anything, but Thea unleashes a series of falsifications that causes Susan Williams to lose her job on charges of plagiarism in order to stop her from running the 'Oliver Queen is Green Arrow' story, causing Susan to put two and two together and basically dump Oliver in the process. Wouldn't you?

Of course, a good chunk of the drama isn't what Thea should do, is that she did it without telling Oliver, thereby ruining his romance. Which really probably was intended to be a huge breach of trust and responsibility, but Susan Williams has honestly never been likable at all, she's always been presented by the show as a thinly-veiled antagonist (if not outright allied with Prometheus then doing her own thing), and, yeah, sucks that she's super sad and super-fucked-up by Thea, but it's not like Oliver himself hasn't done worse to his enemies. Like, y'know, murder them. I dunno. I'm totally with Thea in this episode. Maybe she could've picked a less cruel method of discrediting Susan, but still, she's a threat and Thea dealt with it, and I'm honestly confused why the show makes it a bad thing that I'm cheering for Thea.

The huge character moment for Oliver this episode is to accept that while he doesn't agree with Thea's methods, at least her actions are done in the best interests, similar to Moira, and the two reconcile at the end of the episode. Whereas he also has to deal with Inspector Frank Pike by confessing that he falsified records about Billy Malone's death due to circumstances, and ends up coming clean to the ACU... which really feels like a bit of a retread of plotlines from the first two seasons, with Pike substituting for Quentin, so this bit really didn't gel that well either.

The Russian plotline is moving pretty slowly with yet another week without Talia, and instead just showing a short, truncated action scene of Anatoly and Oliver escaping the hospital only to be held at gunpoint by Gregor's forces. It's a bit of a pointless cliffhanger that really felt like 'hey, one action scene per episode!' scenes from last season's flashbacks, and considering how good the flashbacks have been this season, this felt like a step backwards. Boo.

Overall, while I was totally caught up in the action scenes, coming back to review it kind of showed that this episode had way, way too many flaws to really call it good. The three-villainess and Susan Williams plotline all fell short, ditto the flashbacks.


DC Easter Eggs Corner:

• Cupid was last seen in the season four episode 'Broken Hearts', Liza Warner was last seen in the season four episode 'Beyond Redemption', while China White was last seen in the season two episode 'Identity' (though made several appearances in photographs during season three's flashbacks).