Through six seasons, we've followed Oliver Queen's crusade and at times it's painfully obvious he is the one instrumental to his own downfall, sometimes more so than the actual villain he's facing. It's an interesting character flaw at times, even when it's given poor execution, but at some point, it's become so recurring it feels like an indelible mark on the main protagonist that curses the show as it strides forward. It's as if Oliver Queen would be able to get his city together in a decent time if he had a support system he didn't frequently abandon when the going got a little too tough. And more often than not, that is exactly how a season of Arrow carries itself in one way or another. Bringing back Josh Segarra to play as Prometheus is a fun dynamic, but the ghosts of self-awareness past sometimes feel like they've come too little, too late, and feel nothing more than a cloying wink at the audience to say "we'll do better next time, promise."
The entire premise of "Fundamentals" is that Oliver is going through a Vertigo dosing from Councilmen Kullens and starts hallucinating that his life is in a bigger shambles than it already is. At the end of it, Oliver decides it's time to stop stretching himself so thin (as Diggle so readily reminded us last week), and recommit fully to his crusade by saving Star City and doing so alone. Again, Oliver is the classic over-corrector, so having him abandon Felicity is a little much in an attempt to go solo, especially for an episode all about Arrow's sudden need for self-awareness. It's an interesting well to return to, considering the last few times that Oliver has abandoned his team, he finds a way to be reminded that his allies and partners in his crusade are the ones that keep him both balanced and alive enough to continue what he set out to do over half a decade ago. Since that is the nearly the trajectory of other seasons where Oliver alienates his team at this point of the season, there has to be some gamble by the show to either fully commit to keeping Oliver alone, or having the buck stop after this breakdown.
It's an interesting dynamic to use Adrian Chase/Prometheus as basically a dark reflection of Oliver Queen. It's not actually Adrian but an image that acts as Oliver's dark impulses and the episode treats him very much as the devil on his shoulder. The show is aware enough of itself that it literally spells it out with Adrian's speech in the bunker: no villain is better at taking down Oliver Queen than Oliver Queen himself. I guess it would have been nice to have Prometheus disappear entirely and have his dark voice in his head completely replaced by season one Oliver/The Hood, but that would probably have distracted from the desire the show had to give Oliver an action sequence in his season one costume.
The hallucinations come in waves, showing Oliver's greatest fears, but also making him more irate and anxious. He blows up in from of Felicity and William (in, hilariously, a rather sanitized and calm way) and hallucinates that Felicity wishes to separate from him because of this outburst. He recounts how he's broken Laurel over and over again ever since leaving on the Gambit, and then allowing her to become Black Canary, only to be killed because she didn't have the training to be a vigilante. Dinah, Rene, and Curtis also get their hits in as they deride him for hospitalizing Rene.
The reason for Ricardo Diaz holding back on killing Oliver is to make sure he's not martyred as a figure by the city, so he chooses instead to disgrace Oliver in every way he can think of. It's a little questionable to say it's only the beginning of his plan, seeing as if Oliver was killed, there would be little love lost by the city. Though I suppose the hard part of Diaz is now is rooting out someone who's no longer a public figure and knows he's cornered. Hopefully the final stretch of episodes feature more of Diaz, what exactly he has to offer as a villain, and some idea of what his plan is for Star City, because, like Oliver's Adrian Chase told us, Oliver is doing a good enough job tearing his life apart that Diaz is probably spending more time catching up on his Netflix binge list than having to orchestrate something else to dismantle Oliver Queen's support system. In that way, it makes Ricardo Diaz, in some ways, not really that threatening or much of a worthy antagonist, especially when a hallucination of Adrian Chase is powerful enough to remind you of how well he was used both in the previous season, and the last hour.
Miscellaneous thoughts:
- I'm not sure what to make of the Ricardo Diaz hallucination though, since it means Oliver is at least somewhat aware Diaz is trying to dismantle Oliver before killing him. Which is weird because of the repeating "more dangerous as a martyr than Green Arrow" line.
- Cannot get over how amazing Adrian Chase is in this episode, just lounging around in the background when Oliver is busy with city council, or egging Oliver on to go above and beyond the dangerous.
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