In an episode Arrow that's fairly minimal with its action sequences and dominated by a court case, it was a bit of a surprise to see an hour of Arrow that managed to be just as exciting as you might find a typical (or even almost throwaway) episode of Arrow, where it usually tries to squeeze in healthy amount of action in each act. The show feels like it has to work overtime to continue to prove to the audience that Ricardo Diaz is a threat that is worth taking seriously, but the choice of venue did work to its advantage this week. For all the talk show telling us that Diaz owns Star City, it actually becomes readily apparent more and more the further into "Docket No. 11-19-41-73" you go, and how a team (somewhat) reunited is what the show needs to just wrestle victory away from the villain, if even for a moment.
Despite the fracture between the vigilante teams in Star City, everyone comes together to help Oliver out of his predicament, with Diggle, Rene, Dinah, and Felicity trying to take the stand to try to acquit Oliver of his charges and try to keep his identity secret. As the trial goes on, it's fairly obvious everyone involved in the whole justice system is rigged against Oliver. His attorney can never get a word in edgewise without it working in Diaz's favour, especially not with the judge being a puppet wielded by Diaz. When our heroes think they've gotten a handle on any one situation, Diaz comes with well-crafted counter. The part that finally convinced me that Diaz is as dangerous as the show has been telling us was when Dinah and Diggle, frustrated with Diaz, tries to take him down on the courthouse steps, only for him to summon a battalion of uniformed officers from almost thin air.
Bringing back Colin Donnell was certainly an interesting choice, even if it was obvious it was the Human Target underneath it all. It was never really much of a secret for Tommy's "return" to the show (aside from the crossover), considering it was really an attempt by the team to trip up Diaz's case, if only for them to quickly shoot the option down by having the team learn that Diaz knew about Christopher Chance's existence. Regardless, it was an incredibly fun moment for Donnell to play a much more light-hearted Green Arrow that I'm afraid the show will never really get to do again. It's just that the rather more PTSD-suffering, friend-alienating, dreary Oliver Queen is part and parcel of Arrow as a whole, simply because of how it was born as a show to act as a Batman show without Batman (or as Stephen Amell so quaintly says, he is Walmart Batman).
It's an interesting reversal to have all the people who Oliver had alienated come help him try to keep him out of jail. It's also doubly interesting to finally have Black Siren take a stance on where she wants to stand with Diaz. Slowly and slowly, everything that Diaz has worked for in order to take over the city has started to reverse and work against his favour. The last minute switch with the judge is likely something he did not expect (or maybe only planned on working once with Tommy and already planned to counter), alongside Laurel's betrayal. The show also reminded us that aside from that Hail Mary of an idea from Rene, Oliver's fate was effectively sealed when the team considered the jury was probably also bought out by Diaz.
Having Laurel finally take a side and decide she could take on Diaz was finally refreshing to see, even if it landed her in hot water as Diaz came prepared to stifle her powers in case she ever got rebellious. Or in his mind, he's always been prepared to discard her when she's no longer useful. In the end, it looks like Team Arrow will find a way to reunite, and Diaz, now fed up with playing games with Oliver to disgrace him, will decide it's time to just kill him and sort it all out later. It's been an interesting journey, but looking back, dividing the team didn't really seem to produce too much interesting developments to really excite me, especially when it came to all the heroes of the show. Hopefully moving forward will do the season better.
Miscellaneous thoughts:
- Wasn't really expecting Oliver to give Jean the truth, even considering attorney-client privilege.
- Oliver's reasoning to not want to reveal his identity is an interesting one - it helps to draw the show away from having to deal with it now that the cards are on the table, and it helps set the stage for an eventual cancellation/conclusion to the series if they ever choose to do so.
- Two episodes to go in the season, so it will have to be quick sprint to the finish to see where it all takes us. Rumours flying about the final moments of the season, but if it's not a secret identity reveal, I'm curious just what it will be.
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