Arrow S08E02 Review: Worlds Will Live, Worlds Will Die

Arrow, Season 8, Episode 2: Welcome to Hong Kong

I was admittedly a bit confused when I heard that Arrow was receiving a whole final season not just to tie in to Crisis on Infinite Earths, but also to wrap up some lingering plot threads? I was a bit baffled at that second bit, because season 7 honestly wrapped up particularly well, and there was a massive sense of conclusion to it. But I guess season 8 is less of a season of Arrow and more of an interesting walk down memory lane, sort of a "Countdown to Crisis" prequel thing. It's still pretty dang interesting as an Arrow episode, though, and as we enter the second episode of this shorter season, I'm kind of thankful the end of the episode implies that at least we're not going to be spending the whole season just be Oliver Queen running around being the Monitor's errand boy doing bizarre sidequests.

Because as the title of this episode implies, Oliver goes off to Hong Kong, teleported there by the Monitor to find some scientist called dr. Robert Wong, because the Monitor is enigmatic and wants to do stuff. It's sort of baffling, we've seen that the Monitor has the powers to teleport to other dimensions, break Ma'alefa'ak out of the Phantom Zone in Supergirl and toss around the Book of Destiny in last year's Elseworlds crossover, but he needs some brooding dude with a bow and arrow to hunt down a random scientist? And the Monitor apparently claims that Earth-2 got wiped out by the Antimatter wave as a direct result of Oliver interfering with evil Tommy's Undertaking? That last bit is particularly odd. It's likely that this is more of the Monitor's oblique, ambiguous 'tests' for Oliver more than anything, but it's still kind of an odd thing to do.

And, as with the previous episode where Oliver's attempts to help solve Earth-2's Starling City's Merlyn problem, Oliver ends up having to grapple with his own morality and his feelings of guilt as dr. Wong turns out to be involved with some old, familiar faces. Hong Kong's where this episode is set, and naturally we get a bunch of familiar faces back. China White, Arrow's first recurring villain, shows up as the antagonist trying to get the Alpha/Omega Virus from season three's flashback plot, and Tatsu Yamashiro, a.k.a. Katana, shows up as a guest star and helps Oliver and Diggle around. It's a lot of fun and Tatsu plays off Oliver well. Last episode has basically turned Oliver into kind of a yes-man relying on blind faith, but Diggle and Tatsu keep reminding Oliver of all the character development that he's been through in the past, and he can't return to the guy who just gets so obsessed with the mission that he loses track of his humanity.

And despite the fun setting of Hong Kong and a lot of neat callbacks to the past, it's ultimately an episode that feels similar to the previous one, just with different parts of the show's history that they are homaging. Interestingly, Tatsu's old order apparently has writings about the enigmatic Mar Novu, and with Tatsu comparing Oliver's zeal to how he used to work with the morally-ambiguous Amanda Waller back in season three, it's certainly a valid comparison and one that eventually pushes Oliver to decide to go off at the end of the episode to figure out who the hell this "Mar Novu" dude is.

Laurel-II, meanwhile, gets a fair chunk of great writing, too. As someone who's seen her entire world die and the sheer ridiculousness of the claim (and the fact that Oliver isn't really sounding sane) Laurel-II goes off to attempt to find a way to return to Earth-2. It's, after all, a lot easier to blame a faulty teleportation doohickey than to believe that everything you knew and fought for has been erased within the span of a second. We get some great acting moments from Katie Cassidy as a desperate woman who's desperate to prove Oliver wrong, because the alternative -- that her entire universe is gone -- is too much to bear.

Laurel-II ends up hanging up, unexpectedly, with Lyla of all characters. Lyla has been a character who's honestly more of a plot device than anything, with the only real moments of characterization being her relationship with John Diggle, because otherwise she's just the serious ARGUS lady that we trust as a representative of a government organization. She's got some decent moments over the past seven seasons by virtue of being with us for so dang long, but her talking to Laurel-II about survivor's guilt as she accompanies the last survivor of Earth-2 in trying to get a hacker to fix her dimensional gate-maker and find that, yes, Earth-2 is gone... it's a pretty sad moment for Laurel and a pretty neat one for Lyla.

Oh, and by the way, Lyla is another one of the may people that the Monitor is manipulating and using as minions. Or heralds. Or Harbingers. It's an interesting tie-in particularly to people who's aware of the comic-book character that Lyla inexplicably share a name with, but it does man that there's probably going to be even more Monitor shenanigans down the line with the rest of the Arrow cast, not just Oliver. It's not just interesting in a friend-fights-friend either, but the fact that both Lyla and Oliver actually do want the same thing and are working towards dealing with the Crisis on Infinite Earths, but the amount of trust they have on the Monitor, and just how much the Monitor's told them is... it's interesting.

The future plot is... there. Team Arrow-Beyond is just doing their stuff, fighting the Deathstroke gang, investigating it and having some internal squabbles between Mia and Connor. The fact that J.J. is the new Deathstroke gang leader is an interesting one, and the acting is pretty decent, but it's just that with the massive urgency and scale and huge nostalgia gut-punches that the present-day storyline has, I just find myself just passively watching the future stuff and go 'that's cool I guess'.

Overall, though, the episode is extremely solid. It's got a sense of purpose and direction even if the plot is relatively simple. The scripting in the conversations between Oliver and Diggle, Oliver and Tatsu, Laurel and Lyla are all great. The Monitor's still frustratingly oblique but a lot more involved than he is in The Flash, and all of this running around trying to both figure out what the Monitor is and what the fetch quest is all about are a fair bit more interesting as a tie-in compared to vaguely investigating a sewer door with runes. Overall, pretty neat stuff.

DC Easter Eggs Corner: 

• The fact that Lyla Michaels is working with the Monitor references how the comic-book version of Lyla "Harbinger" Michaels is actually a cosmic being that debuted in Crisis in Infinite Earths, being the Monitor's adopted daughter and primary sidekick. 
• A lot of this episode references plot points from season three -- Tatsu "Katana" Yamashiro, a major supporting character in season 3, make her return and make multiple references to her adventures with Oliver both in the flashback and present-day segments of season three. The Alpha-Omega Virus and how Tatsu's late husband Maseo made a gamble by using it as bait are all events that took place in that season. 
• China White, a recurring villain (the first one, in fact) in season one who's made on-and-off appearances in seasons 3 and 7, makes another return. She references a fight with Tatsu, which took place in season 3's mid-season finale. 
• The Crescent Order, a sect that guards the remaining Lazarus Pits, was introduced in the season four episode "Unchained", but we really don't see them or get any more information about them here.