"The Devil's Greatest Trick" feels like somewhat of a misnomer, seeing as the episode uses a lot of what I would consider storytelling clutches that Arrow falls back on fairly often to try to wrench some kind of reaction from the audience. In terms of its plot developments, it is an interesting finish to the first big arc of the season, but otherwise, the writing feels really fraught and cheap at times in an attempt to maintain the tension the show had continually told us about but failed to show us - at least until the last minute.
It seems where Arrow wants to head to involves Ricardo Diaz - played by the wonderful Kirk Acevado - though the show makes him seem more like an empty vessel and generic villain more than anything. It's one thing to keep your villains mysterious and operating in the background, but not even hinting at it makes it feel like the writers just pulled nonsense out of thin air with little work to back it up. This extends to Cayden James, as it feels as if he was nothing more than an angry cypher at times. Michael Emerson's performance definitely raised the material above anything else, but as someone who had watched his performance through Person of Interest and Lost, it was somewhat lacking in nuance of those two roles, even as he tried to imbue the character with some complexity. It's not until this episode that Arrow wants to reveal its hand regarding Cayden James, which is a shame that it took so long. The material given to Emerson finally comes through and helps provide some sympathy and nuance to what seems like just-another-angry-hacker with a dead child bolted on to justify his vengeance.
Therein lies some of the problem with how Arrow sometimes handles its secondary characters, coupled with the fact the show decided to have two back-to-back flashback-and-they're-dead episodes, as if they needed to finally extend some consideration to the character they're killing off. It's not really brilliant symmetry, as the show posits, when it feels so manufactured. Last week's episode had already had dueling present-past stories involving Dinah and Vincent playing undercover ending in the death and re-death of Vincent Sobel. It feels as if there is no confidence in the audience with the need to show everything and cram it all in the last possible moment. It feels like a waste of Emerson's performance for him to keep so much hidden behind a line of dialogue or two up until the last second. Flashbacks have proven to be strong storytelling tools since Lost deployed them over ten years ago in arguably the most interesting manner. Arrow is no stranger to flashbacks and has always been somewhat of a balancing act in deploying them, but for their villains more often than not, it's typically deployed as a sympathizing tool sometimes too little, too late.
Perhaps that's just the nature of the superhero genre, to make sure we don't sympathize too much for the villains (until they become too popular to simply be villains), though I imagine they could've gotten a terrific performance out of Michael Emerson witnessing the video of his son's murder had the show decided to possibly show their hand earlier, for instance. Sometimes, Arrow seems more concerned about making sure that the viewer follows exactly along with Oliver and his compatriots rather than drawing a broader picture and letting the characters discover organically what the audience has already learned.
Although the show also teased Dinah's dark turn last episode, it seems entirely non-committal in trying to make Dinah seem like someone completely hell-bent on taking revenge on Laurel, and just someone who was really angry and had to take their anger out on someone. Dinah asserted maybe that justice by the bullet was truly necessary, but she still continues on with her bo staff to attack henchmen, and it's not until the final confrontation with Black Siren that she shoots Laurel with Lance's service weapon that makes her entire turn to Vigilante-inspired vengeance seem half-hearted.
The episode's use of Laurel is drastically more interesting as it tries to show that perhaps Lance has gotten to her, but her villainous past has still left an indelible mark on her. She tries to show that much wider range of emotions this season beyond just pure sass, following up with remorse, for instance. There's some interesting complexity in Black Siren as she does try to bluster around trying to convince everyone else she is as evil as they expect her to be, but I get the impression the show wants to move her toward the free agent route like they had planned with Slade Wilson for a long time; having a somewhat repentant villain pop up when needed but not act fully antagonistic towards the heroes unless their agendas don't align. One could argue Anatoly also fits this mold, and the show is stronger for having characters like that in their stable to work with than simple one-and-done villains.
Lastly, it's worth speaking a bit about Oliver and William, whose relationship reached an interesting point in this episode. It's not particularly in a forward motion as some of the earlier plotting of their relationship in the previous episodes (which placed most of the emphasis on Oliver trying to learn how to be a parent), but it does add some nuance to the matter. The show seems to put some more interest in William being more like his father than he lets on - the toy bow-and-arrow shooting contest, William's bravery in the tunnel attack, and also William "brooding" somewhat like his father while in the bunker as recent examples. So for myself at least, it's not much of a surprise that William might take after Oliver, which works into how he ends up at the tense standoff around the thermobaric bomb, even if it feels slightly forced if only to have Cayden James monologue about his son. Perhaps there's something on the horizon for William to become a vigilante like his father. It's also interestingly complicated by the fact that William - now that he knows Oliver is probably back full-time as Green Arrow - that he would rather be involved as much as he can with the only parent he has left.
Miscellaneous thoughts:
- Not quite sure how to feel about Oliver using Barry to help him intercept Cayden James. It felt more like a compromise on budget and runtime to not have to shoot a motorcycle/vehicle chase sequence because of all of the Cayden James flashbacks having to be crammed in. And it begs to wonder why they didn't ask Barry for help in locating the bomb in that case.
- Although I'm sold on Kirk Acevado, I'm not sure how I feel about Ricardo Diaz yet. Again, too many of his moves feel like they've been made off-camera with no regard and right up until the end of the episode, Diaz has been played mostly as a middling criminal with a small connection to Team Arrow (supplying Diggle's steroid drug) with little else of value. How someone who seems like a rising but crappy criminal businessman somehow manipulate others to do his bidding to the point of fracturing a vigilante team and sending a city spiraling, well the show has its work cut out for them.
- I am actually excited that the two halves of Team Arrow remain split; as noted before I do hope that both teams get some time to breathe dealing with some more minor threats this season before the inevitable reconciliation.
- I could be wrong, but Cayden James stealing 50 million from a pharmaceutical company is definitely a Person of Interest reference to when Emerson's character basically did the same thing, more or less. What I'm really trying to say is if you enjoyed Michael Emerson's performance here, watch Person of Interest.
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