Arrow S03E16 Review: Emotional Strings & Chessmastering

Arrow, Season 3, Episode 16: The Offer

Like its sister show, this week’s Arrow has its main plot be about another villain of the week but the main focus is elsewhere. Unlike the Weather Wizard, however, Murmur isn’t really that big of a deal or much of a threat to really engage. Nominally a Flash villain in the comics, Murmur (a.k.a. Michael Amar) is just this a generic serial killer who sewed his mouth shut. And while I appreciate the usage of obscure villains every single time, Murmur just…was kind of a weak villain. He’s got a plot going on, with a simple revenge-against-corrupt-cops vendetta and diamond bullets helping to pad out the episode’s plot, but he really isn’t all that relevant beyond being creepy. You could’ve replaced him with any random generic thug and it will have the same impact.

Likewise, the Hong Kong flashback scenes are really just distractions. Oliver being a big brother to Akio is fun but definitely unnecessary, them just running around pointlessly in Hong Kong is likewise banal. The big reveal that Shado (or a doppelganger) is alive… I honestly don’t care.

With that away, we can talk about the nicer stuff. Shame that so much is devoted to them taking down Murmur’s little organization, because there’s a fair amount of great stuff to be had in this episode.

There’s the overreaching theme this episode on Oliver considering Ra’s Al Ghul’s offer to become, well, the next Ra’s Al Ghul. We see Oliver clashing with Quentin Lance and realizing that Felicity has moved on and is with Ray now (something that Felicity herself points out) and all the stuff going on made him reconsider his commitments and the reasons he set up this cause. Because, you know, when Ra’s pointed out how little difference he really made with his crusade and how much he’s lost (Tommy, Sara, Moira) you can’t help but really think about it and consider it.

I mean, I don’t think there’s any way that Oliver Queen is going to ‘beat’ Ra’s Al Ghul by becoming the new Ra’s Al Ghul, but it’s nice to see Oliver just angsting about how thankless of a job, how he’s making ‘a dent’ instead of ‘a difference’, and it kind of ends up showing how uncomfortable with how… independent Team Arrow has become after his ‘death’. I do like them having their cake and eat it – we don’t really kill off Oliver, but we get the ramifications to other characters which a death would cause.

I do like seeing how Felicity was the biggest voice of reason for Oliver, and despite all the inconsistent writing surrounding Felicity after Oliver’s return, I do like how she kind of settles back into her role of emotionally slapping Oliver back to his baseline when he gets too extreme. She’s still hanging out with Ray and in a nice little relationship with him, but I do like how, while she’s willing to help Oliver and considers him a friend, she also acknowledges that Oliver did push her away and has enough dignity to keep a distance romantically at least. She doesn’t really get that much screentime, though, because this episode tries to squeeze in as many stuff as it can.

We’ve got three girls basically dealing with their daddy issues – Thea, Laurel and Nyssa. And I think the first two were handled relatively well. Thea is basically all sorts of fucked up inside and the fact that she was ready to slit Merlyn’s throat and generally is confused about everything surrounding her… man, Thea is such an emotional wreck right now, but so much more interesting than her pre-season-3 character. I really liked how the big cliffhanger was resolved quickly with Nyssa going all ‘oh I don’t blame you’ just like Laurel did, and Thea’s conflict is going to be largely internal. The fact that she is forced to harbour Malcolm Merlyn – something I didn’t get, wouldn’t Oliver be better served just shoving him in a random apartment instead of further fucking up Thea’s mind? – probably doesn’t help matters. I do like how she’s emotionally grown beyond trying to push the blame on other people, though.

Quentin, on the other hand, is basically in conflict with everybody. He makes it clear that he loves Laurel still, ready to fight to defend her, but he is still fucking pissed and disappointed about the fact that Laurel went as far as to impersonate Sara to hide her death from him. And likewise Quentin is pissed off about the Arrow and basically told him ‘some variation of go to hell’. It’s a believable character growth for Quetnin, though, and I’m honestly really interested to see where the character will go from here. I do like how Quentin ignoring Felicity’s call lost him the few minutes of preparation he could’ve had against Murmur’s diamond-bullet-gang if he had picked it up.  

Nyssa’s conflict with Ra’s is a lot less interesting, though I do like Nyssa herself. She’s really pissed off at Ra’s for fucking her over by promising the title to Oliver instead of Nyssa, and kind of storms off to go hang out with Laurel. Nyssa gets a cool scene taking down both Roy and Laurel without breaking a sweat, and then helps out killing Murmur’s little army before kind of bonding with Laurel. The fact that she kind of promises to teach Laurel more martial art skills is going to make Laurel’s gradual growth into the Black Canary a lot more believable.

And I do like how Laurel, and to a lesser extent Roy, are still growing into their roles as Black Canary and Arsenal respectively, showing up a good fight against random mooks but still getting kind of overwhelmed at times… it’s a nice, gradual growth. Even if Roy really needs to do something beyond just walking around in that wicked-cool Arsenal getup. Diggle, likewise, doesn’t get to do much which is a bit of a shame considering all the buildup from last episode.

We get a bit of Ra’s Al Ghul and the fucking Lazarus Pit is confirmed! I was worried for a second that we’re not going to get the Lazarus Pit when Ra’s was talking about how he inherited the title from his mentor and I thought we’re going to get some bullshit ‘Ra’s Al Ghul is just a title passed down’ thing which, I won’t lie, will probably get me to rage-quit watching Arrow for a while. But the Lazarus Pit is indeed confirmed, and we got the knowledge that the Lazarus Pit is losing its potency on Ra’s Al Ghul because of how many times he used it. Ra’s lets Oliver, Diggle and Merlyn go free as a peace offering, though he really wants Oliver to take his mantle. And both Maseo and Merlyn point out that, well, despite Ra’s happy attitude, the fact that he makes the offer doesn’t mean that he is asking. He wants Oliver to become the Ra’s Al Ghul, and apparently at this moment it involves masquerading as the Arrow and killing people and spreading word that the Arrow has regained his killing tendencies.

Also if Ra’s was so adamant that Oliver be the next Ra’s Al Ghul, maybe he let Oliver live from that fall and the prophecy about surviving a stab is just bullshit?

I dunno. It’s a bit of a lukewarm episode, with more emphasis on character growth and Oliver’s self-exploration, and less on exciting twists and action scenes. But I still liked it for what it did. I still find Ra’s Al Ghul’s motivations and whatnot a bit weird but I really do like him quite a fair bit.