SPOILER ALERT!
If you have missed this season of Arrow so far, we are almost reaching the end, and this episode is the perfect lead into that.
If you haven’t been following, here’s what has gone down so far…Oliver Queen aka The Arrow, was targeted by The League of Assassins as the Killer of Black Canary…Then after surviving the sword of Ra’s Al Ghul. Queen was approached as the next heir to Ra’s. Until queen accepted the offer, the league wreaked havoc on Starling city, and those close to Queen…Last episode, after Ra’s Al Ghul killed Queen’s sister Thea. He was forced to join the league as heir to the demon, in exchange for Thea’s resurrection, through the waters of the Lazarus pit. Thus near the end of the last episode, Oliver Queen The Arrow was branded with his new title “Al-Sah-Him”
Now onto this episode, I loved how it started off with the opening montage, showing the torturous initiation of Oliver into the league, it was a good moment that showed oliver’s disorientation with his new identity, all the while, the phrase “Oliver Queen is forgotten, I am now Al-Sah-Him”… was repeated throughout the scene. It was shocking, to see his transformation, at the end of the scene, where he took, the life of his long time partner John Diggle, only to realize that it was a hallucination.
This struggle between whom we know as The Arrow, and Al-Sah-Him was the running theme of the episode…And it became very real when He was sent back to Starling City, to retrieve Ra’s daughter…whom had taken refuge with Laurel…
Some great moments of writing and character development here,
To see Oliver Queen, whom Diggle calls “The strongest man that he knows”, go completely against character, going so far as to Kidnap diggle’s wife, at whose wedding he was the best man, not but a few episodes back.
The showdown at the warehouse was hands down the best part of the episode, where the change was seen in stark clarity. Diggle, Felicity and Black Canary (Laurel) exchanging Nyssa for Diggle’s wife.
While Oliver stands on the other side with the league.
It was also sad, as throughout the 3 seasons the character of Oliver Queen has been so well defined, to see it drastically transform was a little bit of a shock, and a lot of the other characters felt the same way…as emotion and questions ran high throughout this episode.
I was quiet surprised though, when instead of killing Nyssa, Ra’s arranged a marriage between her and Oliver…interested to see if that goes anywhere. That is why the next episode is the most important, as we get close to the Season finale…
And see whether or not the Alpha-Omega weapon will infact be unleashed on Starling City, and will Al-Sah-Him be the one to unleash it?
I will definitely be staying tuned to see how it all plays out!
By:
Dhaivat Mehta
(Editor – ARTbop alternative)
Dhaivat Mehta is a film-maker and performance poet, and a member of the Tauranga Writers…Involved with many aspects of local creativity! As an organizer he was responsible for last year’s National Poetry Day event “Caught In The Act” He also raps and does spoken word under the stage name Archaeo
