Arrow S06E17 Review: The Battle for the Cowl

Arrow, Season 6, Episode 17: Brothers in Arms

Huh, this is actually a pretty bog-standard episode in Arrow with a couple of exceptions -- the pretty amazingly-acted argument between Oliver Queen and John Diggle that takes place in the middle of the episode, with the buildup from them calmly arguing before it turns out to them taking pretty low potshots at each other, bringing up each other's mistakes and culminating with Diggle throwing a punch at Oliver's face and a full-out brawl. And it's done in a relatively believable way -- both Oliver and John genuinely try to be diplomatic, but John calls out a lot of Oliver's selfish tendencies and Oliver brings up some of John's mistakes and, more than anything else, the history behind them, and the clear pain in fighting and even arguing is well delivered by Stephen Amell and David Ramsey. 

It's certainly puts the Team Arrow vs Outsiders conflict that was the focus of so many of the previous episodes to shame, really -- as mentioned before, a lot of the conflict in that episode is "everyone's acting weirdly dickish this week because we need someone to be a jerk".

But the buildup to the confrontation between John and Oliver is definitely well done. From the relatively simple problem of "why don't you trust me with the Hood, Oliver?" which the two quickly brush off as "eh, it's just a costume and a name", John can't shake off the feeling that something's wrong. They all act professional, and John tries to get over it himself, but it ends up boiling to a head during a mission when John's attempt at interrogating one of Ricardo Diaz's lieutenants goes south when Oliver refuses to allow John to interrogate the dude. John explodes at Oliver that he didn't back the play because "it wasn't your play" -- a criticism that is definitely perfectly valid, especially considering how Oliver's been alienating so many people around him. 

And then the arguments and the jabs just build up in their argument in the middle of the episode. And it feels genuine and emotional in a way that none of the Arrow-vs-Outsiders stuff ever did. John brings up how selfish it is for Oliver to "be the best version of what I can be" while stretching himself too thin playing mayor and father at the same time as trying to devote himself to being Green Arrow. Oliver brings up the fact that John bought drugs from Ricardo Diaz while hiding his condition from the rest of the team. Both of them bring up the fact that Ricardo Diaz did all this during their respective tenures as mayor and Green Arrow. And then the low blows really come -- John brings up Oliver letting Samantha die on Lian Yu, and Oliver brings up how John killed his own brother.

And is it not inevitable that a fight happens right there? The performances are powerful -- John's dialogue are delivered in a hot, angry bluster, because John's running pretty hot and angry after several episodes of frustration. Oliver's anger is there, but cold -- it's calculated, and the way that he delivers "none of the bodies on my trail is my own brother" is so calm and calculated, because he knows it's going to hurt. And god damn. It's hard to think that this set of dialogue came from the same writing team that wrote the laughable confrontations between New and Old Team Arrows in the past couple of episodes. Part of it is how John's arguments seem to be geared towards trying to make Oliver realize his mistakes and not just hot air. John realizes that Oliver is being a better human being, and a better father, but that also makes him a shittier leader of a vigilante squadron. 

Of course, John and Oliver remain relatively professional and, all things considered, pretty friendly until they crush Diaz's Vertigo operation, and then John bids adieu, seemingly to join ARGUS for the time being. Obviously John's not going to be gone for very long, but it's definitely a conclusion that really feels natural through the progression of this episode in a way that the Outsiders conflict didn't feel like. 

There's a couple of B-plots that I kinda sorta am obliged to talk about. Curtis and Dinah have this little sting operation where they try to work with the non-corrupt policemen. Curtis tries to flirt with dreamboat officer Nick but it's not particularly interesting. Nick, Dinah and everyone else gets fired by corrupt police chief Hill, but Nick ends up joining Curtis in his crusade against the corruption of the city. That's nice. Oliver confronts police captain Hill and D.A. Armand -- the two are under Diaz because Diaz knows where their loved ones live, and Oliver fires them. Quentin and Evil Laurel have a bit of dialogue, and Not-Laurel appears to learn law only to apparently use it for the bad guys' benefit. These are all neat storylines, they're just... pretty short and uninteresting compared to the emotionally-driven Oliver/John story. 

You know what I love, though? Anatoly Knyazev. He's getting a lot more to do even though he appears in like five minutes per episode, but he milks it all for glorious Russian dialogue. "Is new suit."

Easily one of my favourite episodes of Arrow, and this episode did in 40 minutes what the show failed to do in 16 episodes -- give a compelling reason and debate between two good guys on why Oliver Queen's methods doesn't work. Add some frankly impressive fight scenes in this episode (again, compared to the sorry shaky-cam excuse that was the previous one) with that fancy-ass scatter-shot arrow, and it's a surprisingly pretty damn good episode of Arrow.