Arrow, Season 3, Episode 15: Nanda Parbat
It’s not quite an awesome episode as last one, but a
shit-ton of things go down and even more secrets are revealed. It’s basically a
big series of secrets being revealed and long-standing plot points getting tied
up. Thea reveals her role in Sara’s murder to Laurel, and I do like that Laurel
doesn’t actually make a big fuss about it… regarding Thea, anyway. But she does
explode on Oliver, and later on goes off to confront Malcolm Merlyn on her own.
Granted she did bring a gun, but really there is no way in hell she’s going to
stand a chance against Malcolm and it really looks like a kid fighting against
an adult and looked relatively painful to watch.
But Thea has somehow managed to contact the League of
Assassins and basically handed Malcolm over to Nyssa, despite Oliver’s
protests. It’s nice to see Thea being extremely proactive, and despite how
badly it could’ve gone, Nyssa, who we know has a liking for Laurel, saves her
and rather easily takes out Malcolm and is ready to leave Starling City for
good. Which went a little too fast and too convenient. The fact that Malcolm is
actually honourable enough to not give out Thea’s role to Ra’s Al Ghul (whether
he knows it or not) is also rather convenient… Ra’s could just kill Malcolm,
and with that both villains would be out of our heroes’ hair.
Of course this is hardly a fitting or climatic ending to
a third season, so through some logic hoops Oliver decides to go off and rescue
Malcolm from the League of Assassins with the rather flimsy and strange excuse
of not wanting to make Thea into a killer living with the guilt of basically
killing her own father. Laurel, Felicity and Thea are obviously against this
rather stupid decision, but Diggle (and the audience) is smart enough to know
that there’s something more going on in Oliver’s head than just wanting to save
his sister’s soul.
We get to see Oliver fight Nyssa and manage to subdue
her, but the League goes off with Malcolm. It’s a delight to see Nyssa battle
both Oliver, and earlier on Malcolm, and the fight scenes are as always
awesomely written. Oliver puts Nyssa in a cage he happens to have, and Nyssa
tells him where to find Nanda Parbat.
And throughout this episode Diggle actually gets to take
the spotlight somewhat after being under-appreciated for a long, long time. His
role in the Brick arc has basically made him the rational Big Brother figure
(Oliver is the stubborn, authoritative one) for their little dysfunctional
family, and I do like how everyone else listens to him when he tells them to
get out while Oliver seems to want to torture Nyssa, or when Diggle trusts
Oliver’s decision. The episode really, really seems to be setting Diggle up to
dying in a future episode, though, which I don’t like. We get to see Diggle
play with his daughter and talking to Lyla, who is supportive of him not
wanting to leave Oliver to go off and face Ra’s alone… and later on he makes
his brotherly bond with Oliver clear and asks him to be his best man when he
remarries Lyla.
Diggle and Oliver taking on the assassins in Nanda Parbat
is a pretty cool scene, even if those fire arrow shooting mooks are kind of
shitty shots for assassins. Diggle totally killed a couple with his machinegun
and Oliver aims for the sides of their neck which is… still kind of dangerous
and could easily be fatal. And Oliver totally set one of the mooks on fire!
That was fucking awesome! But I suppose the sentries could’ve easily been
ordered to miss on purpose. Of course, Ra’s Al Ghul manages to trap Oliver and
Diggle.
And in that prison, Diggle points out that Ra’s Al Ghul
is the only person who totally owned Oliver Queen, and Oliver is having to deal
with being defeated which is why he basically wants a rematch with Ra’s Al
Ghul, which is kind of a flimsy excuse but one that sort of made better sense
than his initial ‘I have to jump into hell to save a psychopathic villain to
save my sister’s soul’ excuse. There might be more to it, but sadly we have to
wait three more weeks until a new Arrow episode because DAMMIT CW
I do like Ra’s scenes, and he’s definitely an awesome
fella. The final twist that he wants Oliver to succeed him as the next Ra’s Al
Ghul, despite being transparently borrowed from how Ra’s acts in the Batman
comics he originates from, is a rather nice thing to explore with a different
hero. I do like how he talks to Nyssa about how he disapproves of her daughter’s
lesbian romance with Sara, which may or may not lead to a confrontation between
father and daughter – extremely likely considering what Nyssa does in the
comics. I also do like Ra’s conversation with Malcolm, how he tells Malcolm to
stop begging and just accept his death with dignity.
Also, Ra’s Al Ghul has got a fucking awesome-looking
golden dragon sword.
Malcolm isn’t dead yet,
so we may see more of him. I do want to see what they are planning to do with
Malcolm, since I don’t expect him to come into contact with the League or get
captured until far later in the season.
Also, the Lazarus Pit is basically confirmed, isn’t it?
Not only is Ra’s just hanging out in the damn thing like it’s a spa, he also
mentions to Malcolm how he met a magician in the 1800’s, and how he met the
magician again near death, showing that he’s extremely long-lived and
everything. Ra’s lines about how not even magicians can cheat death is a nice
one to deliver to Malcolm.
Adding to the more comic-book feel of this episode with
the allusions to the Lazarus Pit, Ray Palmer finally get the Atom suit
operational. Ray and Felicity’s little romantic comedy scenes were nicely
written and it appears that Felicity is going to fully get over her love for
Oliver and hang out with Ray… but with everything else that’s going on, Ray and
Felicity’s part in this episode felt really out of place. We haven’t seen Ray
in over two or three episodes (lampshaded by Felicity in the episode) and this
little subplot certainly seems to exist in its own universe instead of being
integrated to the main plot like the Firestorm plot in the Flash… but it kind
of pays off because Ray Palmer finally dons the Atom suit and flies around the
city and that looks pretty awesome! Lazarus Pit, Atom suits…
Granted, the Atom suit looked like Robocop, the Iron Man
armour and the N7 Armour from Mass Effect made a baby and it was painted in
Captain America colours, and it doesn’t have shrinking powers yet, but I suppose
it’ll come in time.
Thea and Roy also get a little thing going on with them
bonding over killing people under influence (which everyone saw coming) and Roy
has apparently been anonymously helping out the family of the policeman he
killed. And I do like how they acknowledge that the pain will never go away,
the guilt will never go away and all that. Rather interesting where this goes
from here. Thea has been phenomenally awesome in this season, but they haven’t
really done much with Roy other than him donning his awesome costume and I do
hope we explore more of their relationship and dealing with killing stuff.
Thea seems to have became some kind of penance seeker
because at the end of the episode the big cliffhanger is her telling the ‘I
killed Sara’ bit to Nyssa and handing her a sword… but eliminating the fact
that she was under influence. Thea definitely isn’t thinking straight, but
considering Nyssa’s blood knight tendences I’m sure things aren’t going to end
well.
I also liked Laurel’s short scenes in this episode. How she
instantly forgives Thea (despite being visibly shaken) and how she explodes at
Oliver for keeping such a giant secret from her… it rang a bit hypocritical
considering two episodes ago she was doing something comparable to her father,
but Laurel keeps it under control enough to hang out with Team Arrow despite
being angry as hell. I also liked Laurel’s little bonding with Nyssa and
reminiscing over Sara.
The flashback sequence is kind of underwhelming, but still
makes me curious over what’s going to happen. General Shrieve lets Oliver and
the Yamashiros return home, but obviously that happy ending isn’t what happened
to them as they are attacked by what Maseo and Oliver assume to be Amanda Waller’s
men… but it could very easily be Shrieve or China White, considering how Oliver
didn’t really mind Waller in the present day. By the end of the episode Oliver
manages to escape with Akio (who might die
in the future?) while Maseo and Tatsu are left behind pinned under fire from
their assailants.
Overall a rather clunky episode, but a lot of things
happen, a lot of developments happen… and the two final scenes – Oliver being
offered the Ra’s Al Ghul position and Thea handing Nyssa the sword – really
make the three-week cliffhanger a really massive tease. All I can say is, well, look at just how far Arrow has gone since its first season!
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