Arrow S08E06 Review: Do-Over

Arrow, Season 8, Episode 6: Reset

Okay, this one was kind of weird. Time-loop episodes are always fun, a neat trope in sci-fi of characters trying to figure out how to get out of a constantly looping time period that only a single character or two remember of. It's a staple in things like Star Trek, and even the Arrowverse had done it twice before -- Legends of Tomorrow's "Here I Go Again" with Zari trying to figure out how to stop the Waverider from exploding, and The Flash's "Cause and XS", a bit of a more tragic story of Nora West-Allen trying to fix time. Hell, the idea of a slightly-altered history where things are a bit more happy for our protagonists have even been done a couple of times before -- that one "Invasion" episode with the Dominators' mind-world, and earlier with Earth-2 in this season's premiere.

"Present Tense" checks off the list of all the good parts of a time-loop episode, and is honestly a pretty fun episode to watch! It's hell of an emotional ride, but more than anything in this season it feels nostalgic just for the sake of nostalgia, just us burning through a single episode with a filler-y plot as we delay the big revelations about the Monitor that's probably not going to come until the penultimate pre-Crisis episode. Of course, any chance to get Paul Blackthorne back for an extended role, and one where Quentin gets to say farewells to both Oliver and Laurel-II is a highly welcome one, and the emotional farewells here might be my favourite yet in this pretty melancholic season.

Yet "Reset" just kind of feels pretty out of place. It's framed as the Monitor allowing Oliver and Laurel-II to process their emotions through this Groundhog Day loop that stops only if they accept Quentin's death, which is sort of a shrug to make Oliver and Laurel-II be okay with their own sacrifices? Or something? It kinda feels repetitive to me, especially since Oliver's already accepted his fate throughout this season, and it feels pretty derivative of Barry Allen's arc in The Flash's concurrently-running season. I dunno. It's not the episode's fault, and everything it does in this episode is honestly pretty top-notch, from the interactions with Quention, to Laurel-II finally getting a chance to say goodbye to her dad, and Oliver's acceptance of his fate. David "John Diggle" Ramsey directs this episode and it's certainly a pretty grand, standalone episode, but as part of a whole it does feel like it sticks out a bit.

Still, despite the oddity of the setup, "Reset" a nice little breather that puts the focus squarely on Oliver and Laurel-II and the bonds they've made along the way, allowing them to appreciate that they've at least been given the chance -- Oliver to meet his future kids, Laurel-II to say goodbye to Quentin -- to do something differently. Ultimately, I don't have much to say to this episode. The end of the episode finds our heroes waking up in a random military camp in Lian Yu, which means we're going back to the very beginning of the show for the penultimate episode.

DC Easter Eggs Corner:

• Quentin Lance makes yet another return (and perhaps the longest one since his character's death in season 6) after Paul Blackthorne's exit from the show. 
• The mention of "Supermax" is a subtle allusion to the unmade "Green Arrow: Supermax" movie, as well as, of course, the Oliver-in-prison plotline for the first half of season 7.