Arrow, Season 3, Episode 23: My Name is Oliver Queen
Well, Arrow's third season finale didn't have the big epic threat or tension that either one of the first and second seasons finales had. And really, despite being mostly similar -- a large threat to the city (Merlyn's earthquake machine, Slade's superpowered army, the Alpha-Omega virus) led by a single poweful person that's Oliver's opposite in some way, the season three finale felt really flat. Unlike Malcolm Merlyn's insane rambling about wanting to cleanse the city or the personal 'destroy everything that matters to you' that Slade Wilson had, Ra's Al Ghul's "YOU WILL TAKE OVER AS THE NEW RA'S" felt stupid and is still unexplained right up until the final confrontation and Ra's eventual death. But all the stupid gambits that Malcolm, Oliver and Ra's have individually been making leading up to this point has been rather underwhelming and a lot are just eyeball rolling twist-for-the-sake-of-twists.
It's not like season one or two where the villains' performance and motivations are relatively well-defined, and their actions are mostly relatively sensible instead of the completely messy plotting and patchwork Xanatos Gambits of Oliver, Malcolm and Ra's here. And that, really, is what made this season so annoying as a whole... their motivations and actions really doesn't make sense.
Let's recap how silly everyone's motivations are, shall we, before we delve into this episode.
- Malcolm drugs Thea with mind-controlling herbs and gets her to kill Sara completely randomly just to kick off a 'who dunnit' plot. This is to bring the rage of Nyssa and the League of Assassins to Starling City. Malcolm knows this will goad Oliver to protect Thea and will turn himself over to the League.
- Then Oliver fights Ra's on the mountain, thus ridding himself of at least one enemy, while at the same time, maintaining the fact that Ra's won't be after him anymore. Oliver, of course, didn't die.
- Thea lets the League know that Malcolm is alive, while Nyssa refuses to kill Thea, and this part makes sense... but the Oliver randomly chooses to rescue Malcolm from the League because it will kill Thea's soul.
- For whatever reason, Ra's finds Oliver is fit to become his heir with no good reason beyond the extremely flimsy 'prophecy' excuse.
- Ra's does his thing to destroy Oliver's credibility, ruining his whole Arrow persona in Starling City, then almost-kills Thea (how convenient that was) to force Oliver to go to Nanda Parbat to beg for the use of Lazarus Pit.
- Sometime between this point and reaching the Lazarus Pit, Oliver and Malcolm hatch a plan so that Oliver will sneak into the League of Assassins, and destroy it from the inside before Ra's orders Oliver to raze his hometown.
- Oliver gets to be a dick to everyone without telling them of this plan, again justified with the flimsy excuse of him being a death seeker. He then totally gets brainwashed, except he didn't.
- Team Arrow and Malcolm assault the League, while Oliver pretends to let his friends die to pretend to be loyal to Ra's, while Malcolm, after pretending to betray Oliver (again), turns out to have innoculated them against the virus.
Again, it sorta-kinda makes sense but it's still a bit too much for Malcolm and Oliver to have had all this in mind. Especially since Nyssa kind of hints that Malcolm getting the mantle of Ra's Al Ghul at the end of this episode was his plan from the 'beginning'... from him killing Sara? Yeah, I don't buy it.
Similarly, I don't buy Oliver's stupid excuse of being a death seeker as justification for not telling anybody about his plan to bring down the League from the inside, or being a dick to Diggle and Felicity. That punch from Diggle is absolutely well-deserved. Again, characters can make stupid decisions to further the plot and that's fine with me -- I forgive Agents of SHIELD and the Flash when they did it with their respective main characters in their finales because there's at least some logic or sensibility behind their actions. This? Not so much, beyond adding some drama between Oliver and Diggle's bromance.
And all throughout season three, the supposed theme is Oliver's identity issues, whether he is Oliver Queen or the Arrow or something else, with Ray taking over Queens Consolidated and his role as Felicity's boyfriend being the 'end' of Oliver Queen and Quentin finding out about the Arrowcave as well as the sidekicks having their own thing going on being the 'end' of Arrow... but really, the only reason why Oliver suddenly chose this season to be all angsty about it (not that Felicity being portrayed as more wishy-washy this season helped either) doesn't gel together that much, and despite this episode's end about how Oliver has finally found happiness through a long journey... it doesn't feel like it because all Oliver seems to do this season is, once more, distance himself as much as he can by being a dick, while the real effort to reconnect was made by his friends. The whole 'death of character' thing with Oliver being brainwashed into Al Sah-Him could be great if done properly, with all the right motivations and whatnot, but no, all it accomplishes is turn Oliver into a relatively unlikeable dick to all the other characters. It's just messy all around and done purely for the 'oh no Oliver turned evil' except not really, we know that won't happen.
The ending, sweet as it is, also doesn't make sense. Why does Oliver chose now of all times to find out that he's ready to retire and not be the Arrow? It's not as if the police are against him a new development, since that was the whole status quo in season one. It can't be that he discovered only now that he loves people, despite the dramatic Felicity moment in season two and his brotherly love for Thea being a constant motivation throughout the series. It can't be him realizing the city is in good hands, because we had that after his mountain 'death'. It's baffling, especially since moments ago he was ready to be a death seeker and blow himself up in a plane. Again, it's character development that... just happens. There really was nothing that leads to Oliver coping with his trauma and his crusade or anything, and that just felt wonky on the character front.
There were great bits in this episode, of course, with Diggle and Felicity confronting Oliver, or Thea showing up as Speedy at last, or Oliver and Nyssa taking on the league members in the airplane, or "wait for the thunder" and Barry's explosive appearance... but otherwise the episode and indeed how Ra's is taken out is really formulaic. The epic final swordfight between Ra's and Oliver has Ra's holding Oliver at sword-point, they talk for a bit... and then Oliver suddenly gets the upper hand and kills Ra's? That felt rather poorly done and honestly a bit anticlimatic after the super-awesome mountain swordfight.
Another moment that felt kind of m'eh was the lack of anything really League-like after the large army we saw last episode. Beyond Thea coming in as Speedy, all the random League virus-spreaders being taken out by the various allies of Oliver really felt like just splitting them up so Felicity will have that moment where she panics and tries to force Ray to abandon the antidote creation to fly in and save Oliver. Except, y'know, she ends up using the Atom suit herself.
Also, why the fuck did Ra's agents carry briefcases if they are already innoculated with the Alpha-Omega virus, beyond calling out attention to their identities?
Barry's cameo is absolutely gorgeous, set to the sound effect of actual thunder rumbling as he zips in, beats up everyone in Nanda Parbat, cracks some jokes about the Lazarus Pit (it's a hot tub!) and about Felicity calling his real name in front of Malcolm Merlyn... and he couldn't stay like thirty minutes longer to help them beat up Ra's Al Ghul? Unlike Oliver going off after his cameo in Flash's finale, there really is no reason for Barry to head off instead of helping Oliver out here, because surely Harrison Wells can wait in that cozy cell of his?
Also Katana randomly deciding that she came out of retirement to help Oliver last episode, but she won't help to stop the virus at least razing Starling City? That felt kind of random and out of nowhere. Though with the seeming embargo on Suicide Squad characters, I don't think Tatsu will be showing up after this season.
Dahrrk being introduced as Ra's big plan, again, feels convoluted and makes no sense beyond building Damien Dahrrk up for season four which you could do elsewhere without cramming up the finale. And how stupid was it? Ra's goes through all the trouble he did to make Oliver the new Ra's, so that he can use the Alpha-Omega bioweapon on Starling City, so he can take out Damien Dahrrk, who happens to be in that city at that time? Jeez.
Of course, Dahrrk isn't even in the city, so that was a gigantic waste of time for a red herring and foreshadowing.
Another strike against random foreshadowing is Ray Palmer tinkering with his suit and suddenly blowing up shortly before the scene with Oliver and Felicity. For anyone who doesn't already know that Ray will be the Atom, or the whole Legends of Tomorrow deal, that would totally be a sudden and completely stupid little kick-the-dog moment. I mean, I find it a hilarious black comedy to see Ray blow up, mostly because I'll know he'll be fine and be turned into the Atom, but it just came completely out of nowhere.
Thea being Speedy, though? That's awesome. That's pure awesome. Thea's the only one who really consistent in her soul-searching throughout season three, and despite being trapped within Malcolm's insane machinations, she manages to be the one among the cast that has the most solid character arc. Do also like the little 'Red Arrow' and 'Speedy' namedrops in the end, as well as the more subtle gag of Thea wearing a shirt with sequins arranged like her comic counterpart's arrowhead boob-window.
Diggle is also great, finally saying that he's had enough with all this bullshit. And while things are mostly calm between him and Oliver, he's pretty clearly pissed off about Oliver that he's quitting the crusade. Though there are hints that he might be suiting up as a superhero of his own next season, so yay? Green Lantern, maybe?
Malcolm, despite his penchant for stupidly convoluted plots like Oliver, manages to be a lot more fun and he's unapologetic in his dickery. And at the end of this episode he's the new Ra's Al Ghul, and apparently Nyssa is subservient for the moment. This might lead to Merlyn and Nyssa at each other's throats next season, or them united against Oliver for whatever reason, which certainly would be far more interesting than Ra's Al Ghul, who ended up being totally m'eh.
Oh, and the Hong Kong plot, which somehow still slugs on and clings to its unlife, finally ends as well with Oliver brutally torturing Shrieve after Akio dies. Literally nobody cares, and Oliver gets on a boat to... go back to Lian Yu? That's just plain stupid and I don't care...
And really, season three feels written more as a series finale than a season finale, especially with that ending of Oliver heading off with Felicity while leaving Speedy, Atom and the others to watch over Starling City. I'm not quite sure why that justified making Oliver so distant and unlikeable, though.
But still, I still somehow managed to enjoy myself throughout this messy affair of a finale. It's still enjoyable to some extent mostly due to seeing all the action scenes and all the non-Oliver people just have a ball saving the city. I just hope season four and Damien Dahrk or however you spell his name is a far more interesting villain than Ra's Al Ghul, we get a far more superior flashback than Hong Kong and Oliver doesn't contemplate his existence all the time.
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