Arrow S05E22 Review: The Socks of Oliver Queen

Arrow, Season 5, Episode 22: Missing

So, yeah two more episodes to go, and it turns out that everything is still part of Prometheus's grand plan. There's the cheeky acknowledgement during Oliver's birthday party that that time of year is one where they usually have to deal with the season finale crisis, but that, too, is why this season's climax is actually so different. Unlike the previous four seasons, there is no doomsday device or army of ninjas that's besieging Star City. Hell, Adrian Chase himself is locked up, and for all they know Rene could just be passed out on the couch, drunk, instead of being kidnapped off-screen.

Of course, they really should've been a lot more genre savvy. It's odd that Quentin wasn't more aggressive in hunting down Rene after the events of the previous episode, especially considering Adrian Chase's penchant for over-planning. And even if Chase was indeed taken down, Oliver know that Talia al Ghul is at least in play, so not expecting any sort of reprisal from Chase's mentor seemed rather odd, especially as he went down relatively easily last week.

The conflict for the season finale isn't some huge curveball that caught me off-guard. It's actually quite expected, really. The foreboding music as Oliver enters his apartment and kung-fu-throws an assailant, only to find out that it's Curtis and they're throwing a surprise birthday party, is just the right amount of 'aw, look at them having a good time' before you realize that, no, there are two episodes left and it's not going to be parties and fun-time. Especially with the William scene two episodes ago.

And since Oliver's big moral throughout this season (and the previous one, too) is that he can't just do everything on his own, and his team is super important, so that is what Adrian Chase strikes from. The fact that Adrian still has allies -- Evelyn being MIA for the past half-dozen episodes actually mad me forget about her that her showing up is a bit of a surprise, but also the fact that Talia and Black Siren are both in league with Prometheus. In retrospect, yeah, you'd expect these characters to show up in the finale, and it's amazing to see that Prometheus himself has gathered a team of warriors himself to fight Team Arrow.

At this point, Wild Dog was taken down off-screen, and both Curtis and Dinah get taken out by Team Prometheus, then Black Siren and Evelyn kidnap Quentin and Thea, then an army of Talia ninjas take down Diggle and Felicity... all the while Adrian Chase himself is just hanging around in his glass cage, secure in the knowledge that whatever happens, it's a victory for him. If Oliver kills him, he wins because he'll have broken Oliver's code. If his minions kill Oliver's friends, well, their deaths will fuck up Oliver. And if Oliver breaks him out of jail (as what happens in this episode), he's just playing like a performer on a stage to his tune. Yes, there's definitely a Skyfall vibe to this all, except Adrian Chase has way more than two hours to grow and make his malice and threats feel far, far more threatening and deadly than ever, and like the characters in the show, you're just second-guessing just what the fuck Adrian Chase's plans are. Did he predict that Oliver's going to go against his gut and send Diggle and Felicity away?

It's just so insanely different from any other big bad villain in the past. With Malcolm Merlyn, Damien Darhk and Ra's al Ghul, it's just a matter of Oliver trying to stop this man threatening the city. The one that comes close to having a personal score to settle is Slade Wilson, but Slade himself is both driven insane by Mirakuru, and is also simultaneously trying to take over the city and his methods to 'break' Oliver is way more direct. Kill his mother. Take over his precious company. Beat up his friends. Infect Roy with Mirakuru. Chase? Chase is far more devious, far more convoluted, and far, far more happy to play mind games with Oliver. And the scene where Diggle and Felicity try to second-guess just what Chase's endgame is, and whether going away from Star City is really the best bet for them, is amazingly evocative of what Oliver himself is going to do.

And Oliver is being pushed further and further, especially when the show's longer-running supporting characters start to get taken down, that he ends up accepting Malcolm Merlyn's help without much protest. Malcolm being involved also makes sense -- for all the convoluted motivations that he has had over the past few years, his love for Thea (as twisted as it sometimes is, RE: Sara's death) he's still trying very hard to protect his daughter. There's a fun bit as Malcolm snarks about how hard it is to take down an entire army of policemen and free Adrian Chase without killing, and the absolutely hilarious bit when Malcolm realizes that Oliver called in the help of his 'wife', Nyssa.

Malcolm being the one to tell Oliver that his goodness is an asset and how he needs to think like Green Arrow, not think like Prometheus, seems to be an odd bit that doesn't work quite as well as Captain Cold's speech to Flash in the equivalent episode, but at the same time having Malcolm talk about how they are all defined by their relationships to people and acting as an island is a huge mistake is definitely poignant considering the shit that Malcolm has been through. For all the man's issues, Malcolm's biggest goals have always been to reconnect with Thea, his crusade was driven due to his wife's death, and even in Legends he wants to bring Tommy back more than anything. Malcolm has gone through a similar road as Oliver and Chase has, and seeing him mature as well while still retaining his villainous edge is amazingly done. 

Oh, and as the three assassins return to Lian Yu, where Chase is apparently holding everyone hostage (and the threat of William is launched and is hanging over Oliver's neck -- moreso than any other member of the cast, William has no way to defend himself) and he goes up to the prison where Slade Wilson is to confront Deathstroke himself in a plot twist that actually took me by surprise. See, not paying attention to TV show news pays off, because I freaked out a little when Slade showed up.

What else is there to talk about? Black Siren, I suppose. Quentin finally meets Siren, and how can he not hope? It's a cruel, cruel scene as Quentin blubbers about how Laurel's back, just like Sara! And for a man who's dealt with the death of Sara twice and Laurel once, holding out hope for his baby girls coming back... it's absolutely heartwrenching to see that hope torn out from him, and in the vehicle when Thea tries to explain Earth-2 doppelgangers to Quentin, you can just see the moment when Quentin forces himself to accept the horrible truth that this woman who looks and talks like his dead baby girl is a version of her... isn't her. 

The flashback storyline is honestly the weaker part of the episode, but that's not very fair. Like all of the flashback stories, the conclusion is set in stone. Oliver will succeed in his escape, Konstantin's mental torture will ultimately fail, and the dude's probably going to be killed. But the journey there is far superior to, well, literally every single past flashback storyline. Konstantin injects Oliver full of a weird drug that forces him to relive his worst memories, a rather convoluted way to have him reflect on five seasons' worth of hurt and pain, the 'five years in hell' repeated at the opening sequence every week. Seeing Yao Fei back as a hallucination after the montage of torture that Oliver has been through is also well done, and the callback to things like Sheng Chun is amazing. Of course there will be some people who, in Oliver's mind, will hate him for putting them through hell, but having Laurel show up as the hallucination that finally gets Oliver to stand up for his own is definitely well done.

So yeah, the buildup for the finale is amazingly done. We've got two teams full of badasses (including a lot of returning characters) up against each other in the next episode. Adrian Chase is an amazing antagonist, the flashback storyline is intriguing if kind of set in stone, seeing Malcolm, Nyssa and a Laurel back is great, and Slade motherfucking Wilson is back, baby, and that's all I need. 

DC Easter Eggs Corner:

• Oliver's chibi cake is from Lord Mesa Bakery. Lord Mesa is a fan artist who's relatively prominent in the Arrowverse fandom. I'm a fan of his artwork personally, and go check him out! The birthday cake having a '6' on it is a reference to how the Arrowverse is six years old, give or take a couple of months, at the time that this season was produced and aired. 
• Several older recurring characters return in this episode after being absent for multiple seasons. Yao Fei, Oliver's island mentor in season one, returns as a hallucination in the flashback. Malcolm Merlyn, having been absent from Arrow since the season four finale (because he's starring in Legends of Tomorrow), returns for good. Nyssa al Ghul also returns after being absent since late season four. Slade Wilson/Deathstroke also returns, after being absent since season two -- though he has shown up in hallucinations albeit in full getup and not played by Manu Benett. Black Siren returns after the mid-season premiere, having been broken out by Adrian Chase. Evelyn Sharp, having been MIA since 'Kapiushon', also returns.
• In addition to Yao Fei's appearance, Oliver's drug-induced flashbacks include many, many traumatic events that Oliver has been through in the flashbacks. Among them being shot by Yao Fei and being tortured by Billy Wintergreen (season one); killing one of Ivo's hechman and seeing Shado get killed by Ivo (season two); torturing and murdering Shrieve brutally in Hong Kong (season three); getting tortured by Conklin and being forced to kill Taiana (season four).
• Yao Fei also reminds Oliver about Sheng Chun (survive), a mantra he told Oliver to learn early in season one. Yao Fei also references his dying wish. Season-1 Laurel (with the brunette hair) also makes an appearance as hallucination-Oliver's voice of reason.
• Diggle and Felicity reference Isabel Rochev when they see Talia's assassin standing in the road, and attempt to do the same thing and run her over, though it's not as effecctive here. 
• Diggle mentions that his wife is in Chicago, and while she's not exactly there (yet), Lyla did mention that she's going there in the concurrently-aired episode of the Flash, Infantino Street, where Lyla had to deal with Flash infiltrating an ARGUS facility.
• Thea references the last time they celebrated her birthday, which was in season one where she got high on the Vertigo drug and crashed her car.
• Nyssa references her meeting Sara near Lian Yu, which happened in-between the season two flashbacks where Sara was presumed to be killed when the Amazo sunk, and the present-day portions of season two when Sara shows up as a member of the League of Assassins.
• Oliver references Malcolm informing Damien Darhk about William's existence, which happens last season. Nyssa and Malcolm also reference their fight over the Ra's Al Ghul mantle, which took place last season.