Arrow S07E07 Review: Prison Predator

Arrow, Season 7, Episode 7: The Slabside Redemption

Hey, the Slabside story arc is finally over! And I thought that it's... it's about the right amount of episodes. 7 isn't that much, especially when you're binge-watching, and I feel that it's about this point that I started getting tired of them exploring all possible avenues of a vigilante-in-prison tropes, so it's neat that they ended the whole Slabside storyline.

And they ended it with a bang! I've been complaining about how bland Ricardo Diaz has been throughout the entire season, being more of a plot device to take down more than an actual character himself, and Diaz basically serves that purpose again, being a generic big bad guy that takes over the prison and wants to make Oliver suffer. Still, it's at least a pretty credible threat, and we do get one last hurrah of all the characters in the prison as Diaz kills his police escort (of course) walks into Slabside, talking to Oliver during visitation and causing him to last out and punch that glass wall.

Meanwhile, we get a scene where Oliver tells Stanley that he's criminal scum, even though Stanley (who totally murdered that guard last episode) is still convinced that he's just doing what Green Arrow does to bad guys, and that they should be buddy-buddys. Man's clearly not well in the head. To amend this, Oliver goes off and apologizes to the Bronze Tiger in solitary, telling him that he's going to get him out of solitary, maybe make a deal with ARGUS and get him back in the Suicide Squad or something.

Of course, this all goes to shit when the wardens are apparently pretty dumb and refuses to entertain Oliver's insistence that, hey, Ricardo Diaz has infiltrated the prison... leading to Oliver showing off that he does have resources. Making a McGyver bomb in his cell and blowing the door open, we get a pretty badass prison ninja scene of Oliver jumping around stairwells and corridors and shit. And... I dunno, there could definitely be a less violent way of Oliver accomplishing this, but I kinda buy that Oliver's not thinking straight whenever Diaz is involved. Plus, that action scene is awesome.

Diaz basically waltzes into the prison field, armed with the heaviest of plot armour, and even gets to deliver a speech while like a half-dozen guards stare dumbly before Diaz guns them all down and frees the inmates. And... and the rest of the episode is just badass action scene after badass action scene, really. Oliver versus Brick and Sampson, and then Bronze Tiger joins the fight with his badass dagger. Oliver is insistent that they rescue all the guards, something that Bronze Tiger ends up actually humouring, leading to a pretty badass segment of the two of them charging around the Slabside set and throwing off prisoners off of guards.

We do get a silly scene where Stanley stabs Oliver with a sedative and ties Oliver up, basically forcing Oliver to escape with him through the morgue... but thank god the episode doesn't linger around this too long and Oliver just breaks free of his ties, kicks the twerp in the face and locks him up in the room.

And then Oliver rejoins the Bronze Tiger, has a brief talk about how Oliver's now seeing worlds in grays instead of black and white, and we get more action scene! Oliver beats the shit out of mooks with soda cans stuffed in a bag, which is just pretty badass. Bronze Tiger gets to fight Brick mano-a-mano, and then Sampson, while... while Diaz just blows the god damned prison up. Because. In the process Sampson is set on fire and gets killed, while Oliver goes off to fight Diaz.

And... and the final fight between Oliver and Diaz is pretty cathartic, really. Diaz beats up Oliver and kicks him around, stabbing him with Tiger's shiv and mocking him as he kicks Oliver back into his cell, mocking him and Felicity... until Oliver turns things around, pulling Tiger's blade and stabbing Diaz and locks the cell up with a knocked-out Diaz in it. I really would rather have Diaz just written out entirely by death because I don't want another half-season dealing with Diaz and his piss-poor motivations breaking out of prisons, but I will take this victory.

The final scenes of the episode is... Oliver released to Felicity and Diggle, finally leaving Slabside behind, while Oliver also promises to get Turner out of prison. Stanley, meanwhile, escapes and stabs Brick (to death?) while doing so.

Ultimately, it's... it's a pretty badass ending to the Inmate 4587 storyline. It's not been an arc that I'm particularly fond of, and this episode is certainly not perfect -- there were many points where I just utterly groan at Ricardo Diaz and his ridiculous plot armour. And maybe that final fight would've worked better as a martial arts fight like Diaz and Oliver had in season 6 instead of giving Diaz random super-strength... but hey, it's an episode full of pretty decent action scenes. And Bronze Tiger gets a lot of screentime, which I'm always a big fan of. Not going to complain too much about that. 

DC Easter Eggs Corner:

• Stanley's full name is revealed to be Stanley Dover, a villain in the 2001 run of Green Arrow that was also known as the Star City Slayer, an occultist killing people to please a demonic entity known as the Beast With No Name. However the Beast With No Name is actually hell's equivalent of a big puppy and befriended Stanley's grandson (who nicknamed him Spot), refusing to obey all of Stanley's commands. Pretty sure all of the demon stuff isn't going to be relevant for Arrow's version of the character, though.