For someone who has been wondering exactly when they might focus more of the big bad of the season, Ricardo Diaz, "The Dragon" comes at just the right time to pique some interest in the show's interpretation of the character, but it ends up coming off as a little unsatisfactory for those who hoped they might get a deeper dive into the villain or perhaps allow the audience to sympathize with him somehow. Don't get me wrong, the focus on Diaz's side of his operations was a breath of fresh air in a season of Arrow by breaking the traditional point-of-view of the show. The only problems is that it feels a little late, and doesn't really offer a particularly interesting story to explain Diaz who he is, unless you mean to present him simply as a force of nature with some patience behind him, but also a short fuse.
Now that Diaz has completed his takeover of Star City, he and Black Siren head to Bludhaven to meet with a member of The Quadrant, a supposed criminal enterprise that spans the entire country. He wants to sell them on the idea that Star City is basically completely taken over, and safe to operate in; he just wants a seat at the table in exchange. I suppose the fact that it's also helmed at the top by four people is something the show deliberately obfuscates until the very end, when it's revealed that four people (who are not really identified) are in charge of pretty much all organized crime in America.
The show wants us to show us who Diaz is, and where he came from, but it's limited to a small scene of a young Diaz being bullied by an older boy with a lighter. It's in some way a sort of rags-to-riches story for Ricardo Diaz, as he comes from nothing, but rejoices when he gets his seat in The Quadrant and is titled "crime lord" by Laurel by the end of the hour. All of that is driven by a fear of powerlessness that the bully Jesse had instilled in Diaz as a young boy. Becoming part of The Quadrant isn't merely the next step in Diaz's plans for his criminal enterprise, it's the last rung on the ladder he needs to climb to finally shed the fear of the young boy that he's carried with him since then, the show argues.
It's an interesting idea to have Diaz driven solely by this fear that he'll be remembered (or rather forgotten) as a nobody. The word "loser" is a strong motif in this episode, as it's the label that Diaz wants to shed. The Cartiers Sr. and Jr., who Diaz want to win over, see him as nothing but an uncouth street thug. By getting that seat on The Quadrant, he feels as if he's finally earned the respect that he's deserved, and he's able to get his payback on Jesse, decades after Jesse has moved on and has forgotten about Diaz. He didn't make much of an impression, Diaz says. In some ways, therein lies the rub: Diaz in many ways hasn't made a big impression, both in a textual sense (he wants to manipulate and control Star City in the background) and the metatextual sense (it's not really until "The Dragon" where Arrow gives us more than an inkling of what or who Ricardo Diaz is) but the episode is all about Diaz doing all he can to be noticed.
With that final moment to work with though, Diaz is drawn sufficiently enough to give the audience some understanding of who he is. He's a man with one hell of a chip on his shoulder who just happens to have an idea of planning long term. Unfortunately the show doesn't really explain just exactly how Diaz is also such a physical presence, though it could be explained that his earlier defeats at the hand of Team Arrow were just to downplay his abilities. Regardless, "The Dragon" shows us that Ricardo Diaz is basically John Wick, except with one hell of a brutal mean streak, even if we don't know exactly the pedigree of his training (this is one of the few seasons where the villain has little to no connection to the League of Assassins) considering it's rather doubtful a street thug with some aspirations to something greater didn't at least enlist in the armed forces or was taught by someone who was. But either way, at least the episode allows us to understand that Diaz is a competent physical threat to our heroes, something that I had remained doubtful of up until last week.
The episode also does a very obvious job of showing us that Diaz's level of brutality is definitely not for Laurel's tastes, as it constantly cuts away to show her wincing at or questioning many of Diaz's over-the-top uses of excessive force. It will likely work somehow into some redemption arc for Laurel, as the show constantly shows us she's either getting squeamish about the criminal way of life, or maybe Diaz is just too much, even for her.
It's an interesting surprise to put Oliver back on the sidelines, which hasn't been the case since Diggle wore the Green Arrow costume earlier in the season. To be fair, this is an episode of Arrow that breaks the traditional point-of-view storytelling we're used to, so it is a breath of fresh air to have Diaz star in his own story in some ways as the protagonist. I can imagine the Felicity-Curtis scenes trying to work at Helix were created to make sure Stephen Amell made an on-screen appearance this episode, as well as try to reason out why Oliver would abandon Felicity, as well as how she would react. Curtis' reactions to everyone jumping ship from Old Team Arrow almost felt as if he wanted to just recruit Diggle and Felicity and rename themselves Team Everyone But Green Arrow.
Miscellaneous thoughts:
- Regardless of my thoughts on Diaz being able to have the same overall physical style as John Wick, impressive job on behalf of the stunt team.
- "And what would you have done if they shot you in the head?"
- "Plans are like men. It's best the avoid the complicated ones." Laurel has the best lines.
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