Arrow S07E03 Review: Fight Club

Arrow, Season 7, Episode 3: Crossing Lines

Bit of a simpler episode, honestly. No mysterious Arrow impersonator subplot, no flash-forward, just three storylines going on at the same time, one taking place in the prison, one revolving around Felicity and one revolving around Diggle.

The Oliver Queen storyline was kind of predictable, and honestly a little bit boring. We get to see the fallout of the previous episode's attack on Yorke, which basically has Brick open everyone's cell... just so they can have a fight club? And predictably doublecross Oliver? It's weird and seems pretty impractical, but I guess Brick is just dicking with Oliver. He basically fights his way through Bronze Tiger and later on Sampson, then stabs a bunch of guard to descend "into the next level" in order to meet the enigmatic "Demon". We do get a pretty great scene between Bronze Tiger and Oliver, with Bronze Tiger telling Oliver how he basically saved Diggle back during that Suicide Squad mission against Golem Qhadir, which seems to be setting up for Bronze Tiger to eventually help Oliver. Oh, and we might have a follow up to the seemingly-aborted China White arc, which is neat. Also, we do get a lot of great martial

The Diggle stuff is also pretty simple. Diggle, Lyla and Curtis go and use a painting to steal some data from a bank, and then Diggle has to have a conversation with Lyla about keeping secrets from him, because Lyla needs to work outisde the rules to keep ARGUS afloat or something? It's kind of an argument we've seen multiple times before, although at least Diggle and Lyla have the decency to sort of just brush it off and acknowledge that the problem is more Lyla keeping secrets from Diggle more than anything.

Felicity, meanwhile, works with the (frankly quite incompetent) FBI to try and lay a trap for Ricardo Diaz "off the books", and we basically get to see Agent Watson written out of the story. It's kind of a shitty thing for Felicity to do, honestly, winning Watson's trust and eventually betraying her by conspiring with Rene to basically get Silencer spirited away from FBI hands. This costs Watson a reassignment despite her sticking out her neck to help Felicity... but as shitty as this is, I really find myself really rooting for Felicity here because, well, as Felicity's pointed out, Watson's been pretty much incompetent. It's a horrible thing that Felicity betrayed her like that, but you can't say that it's not pragmatic.

Anyway,  a simple but interesting episode. Diaz's whole raid on the CDC is apparently to get a super-strength serum or something? These recent episodes have all been really straining my suspension of disbelief that Ricardo Diaz is somehow this universe's version of Batman, sans gadgets and Batmobile, able to disappear from any situation despite being insanely outnumbered. Apparently he's got super-strength now.

Overall, a simple episode that's not going to be memorable, but a pretty focused entry.

DC Easter Eggs Corner: 

• The silence-causing member of the Longbow Hunters is dubbed Silencer by Felicity and Rene. Silencer is a relatively new DC comics title that debuted earlier this year, starring the retired League of Assassins/Leviathan member called "Honor Guest", who used to be known as Silencer, coming out of retirement and acting as kind of an anti-hero after her retired family came under attack. Considering that Arrow's Silencer basically has nothing in common with this Silencer other than her gender and ethnicity, it's probably safe to say that the name is more of a coincidence than anything. 
• The credits identify the shield-wielding member of the Longbow Hunters as Kodiak, a very minor villain that's the leader of the 'Shield Clan' segment of the Green Arrow enemy known as the Outsiders (not to be confused with the superhero team Outsiders). 
• Bronze Tiger mentions the events of season two episode "Suicide Squad", and his team-up with Diggle and Lyla in that episode. While they don't interact with Bronze Tiger, Lyla also mentions how Deadshot and Cupid hung out with them in that episode. (Poor Shrapnel)