Arrow S03E17 Review: Diggle's Bloody Honeymoon

Arrow, Season 3, Episode 17: Suicidal Tendencies

Well, there are a couple of things running through this episode. The most interesting bits for me are undoubtedly the Suicide Squad bits with Diggle and Lyla and Deadshot (and I guess Cupid too) which is a real blast. The main Central City stuff with the manhunt for Arrow led by an angry Quentin Lance and Ray Palmer in his brand-new Iron Man suit is a bit less interesting and felt like retreading old ground… though Ray Palmer’s Atom suit is freaking awesome especially when the actually did fight. I don’t particularly give a shit about the little lovey-dovey triangle thing between Felicity and the two heroes though I do appreciate how much Felicity influences Ray’s choices. I also don’t really give two shits about the flashback, which was just weird and distracting in my opinion.

But anyway, Diggle and Lyla get married, officiated by Ray Palmer who stepped in at the last minute as a minister. Also they’ll photoshop in Oliver as best man in the photos after the wedding. And after that they were all like ‘oh no fake Arrow is killing people’ but Oliver tells them to bug off and enjoy their honeymoon… so of course their honeymoon gets hijacked by Deadshot. Waller wants to send off the Suicide Squad to rescue this random senator held in hostage in some random country… and the Suicide Squad’s roster has apparently been reduced to just Deadshot and Cupid. Where’s Bronze Tiger?

Whatever the case, though, Diggle joins up with Deadshot, Cupid and Lyla and they head off to save the senator. We get some fun little talking scenes between Deadshot and Diggle, and Cupid is apparently still obsessed about the Arrow. It’s fun seeing how Diggle and Lyla are talking about their own marriage and Cupid goes all ‘florists are expensive, in my wedding I’ll make my own flowers’ and stuff like that, then Deadshot disses Cupid off for being a stalker. I also do like how Deadshot keeps taking pot-shots at Cupid for being kind of cuckoo in the head.

But when the Suicide Squad comes in to rescue the senator, apparently he’s planned this entire hostage situation so he can use it to kick-start his presidential run by looking like a hero. And when the Suicide Squad barges in, he decides to cut off all the loose ends and kill all the hostages and the Squad. That itself lends to a shit-ton of awesome fight scenes. Diggle and Lyla get to brutally manhandle the mercenaries, and even fucking Cupid gets a couple of completely badass moves to her name, elevating her beyond ‘that creepy stalker villain’ in my head. In the process Deadshot saves Cupid from being shot, and Cupid goes all lovey-dovey for him instead. That was fun.

All this is intercut with flashbacks to Deadshot (which are a lot more concise and effective than 90% of Oliver’s) returning home from war and, well, not taking it very well. His own daughter is terrified of him from the get-go, and he explodes and snaps at his wife in front of his daughter, going so far as to pull out a gun. That’s absolutely heartwrenching to watch, and really puts Deadshot’s talks about how people in their line of work can’t ever find happiness or family into perspective. Deadshot’s always been one of the more likable recurring villains thanks to his weird code of honour, but this one really nails it in that, well, they really do want us to like Deadshot. I honestly half-expected him to put a bullet through his wife’s head but I guess that’s a bit too dark. Regardless he’s all fucked up and once he’s in prison some lady pays bail for him and goes all ‘we have need of someone of your talent, you’re never going to have a normal life anyway’ and we’re led to believe it’s ARGUS until she starts talking about drones and shit and, well, it’s Hive! I nearly forgot that Hive is involved with Deadshot and, yes, Hive’s first target was Diggle’s brother.

We also get some depressing moments with Lyla breaking down at the idea of their daughter losing both her parents in the same day, but they eventually hatch a plan. Deadshot helps cover the Suicide Squad’s escape as they assault the senator’s mercenaries and rescue all the hostages, but has no way to escape the roof and after looking at a photograph of his daughter one last time, blows up with dignity.

Man, Deadshot. Your death was fucking sad.

The ramifications of Deadshot’s death is fully felt as we see just what the Suicide Squad amounted to in the eyes of people like Waller, because Deadshot is set up as the fall man in the news report, painted as the one responsible for kidnapping the senator. This does lead to Lyla quitting ARGUS in disgust, and indeed between the Hong Kong plot and Manhunter and Captain Boomerang, this season seems to be angling to paint ARGUS in a worse light compared to previous seasons. Shitting all over Deadshot’s sacrifice is a pretty dickish move for ARGUS to do.

Oh, and there’s all the other stuff going on with Oliver being the subject of a manhunt, spearheaded by Ray Palmer and his fancy new Atom suit. I do like Felicity being trapped between keeping secrets to and from Oliver and Ray. Ray scans the Arrow with his X-Ray vision (hee hee Superman jokes) and was all like ‘Felicity why didn’t you tell me Oliver was the Arrow?’ while Oliver is like ‘why didn’t you tell me Ray was building a super-suit?’ And Roy is like ‘a super-suit that’s fucking cool’. Roy’s got his priorities down.

We get some generic dialogue blah-blah about Oliver ranting about how it isn’t possible to be a functional human being and an agent of justice and have love and blah blah and honestly it’s been done so many times throughout Arrow’s third season that I kind of glossed over it, especially since this episode did the human connection thing a lot better with Diggle and Deadshot’s respective stories… and both Diggle and Lyla proof that, yes, you can have both sides of the argument.

But anyway, Ray Palmer gets a bit of a douchiness upgrade, especially after he discovers Oliver’s identity earlier on in the episode and gets all jealous and shit. Ray gets shut down by Laurel when he tries official channels, and then goes on his own personal manhunt… and later lured Oliver and Roy with a fake distress call and swoops in with his Iron Man super-suit. He Palpatine-lightning blasts Roy to the ground (no one made sure he is alright even after the fight, poor bastard) and then does some cool flight tricks and robot stuff, but Oliver manages to win by locating a weak spot and shooting it with an exploding arrow. There’s really not much tension because they’re not going to each other, but while it’s a lot shorter than the Arrow/Flash fight from the crossover, it still is awesome to see two superheroes fight. Even if one of them is being a douchebag for no real good reason.

Oliver then gives Ray some speech and tells him to be happy with Felicity and then all is good since Ray and Oliver are buddies again. Until the end, anyway, where Ra’s fake Arrow dude shoots the mayor dead right when Ray and Laurel are trying to call off the manhunt, and then takes a bead on Felicity…

Well, the main focus is on Team Diggle, as well as the love-triangle cast. Thea and Malcolm take the most brunt for losing screen-time, but Laurel does get a few nice scenes her way. She is apparently been training with Nyssa, which is great, and her scene with Ray and shutting him down with legal procedures and snarking at X-Ray vision is an absolute delight which we’ve not seen in a long, long time ever since she decided to go emo.

Overall while the Diggle parts of this episode was particularly strong, I thought the Oliver/Ray bits could've stand to feel a lot less like a 'I'm better than yours' fight and more of ideological differences or something. I still think the Fake-Arrow angle is a bit weak, and kind of m’eh. Ra’s big master plan would kind of fall short if Quentin was still in good terms with the Arrow and I dunno, as far as endgames go, this felt like an unnecessarily convoluted way to force Oliver to bear the mantle of Ra’s al Ghul.