With the much-hyped return of Caity Lotz as the Canary, Arrow made some major advances in its story and character development, while still regrettably not delivering very well on the confrontation between Canaries.

Also, yeah, full spoilers be ahead.

Let me just get what didn’t work for me out of the way fast: Caity Lotz’ portrayal of Sara Lance last year basically catapulted her up to my favorite character in the series. So I have to say that the show really got me when they decided to just up and murder her in the Season 3 premiere. But along with the characters, I, too, have grieved and moved on. And when I heard Caity Lotz was returning, I was curious, but this fear toxin Vertigo angle is a good one, as it’s an already established thing in the Arrow universe.

But to have Lotz just show up for a couple of fights and verbalize Laurel’s internal conflict just came off a bit “meh.” Plus, since the hallucination was only a fear-based manifestation of the character, it’s not really our Sara, it’s just a thing that exists to cast doubt. So while Caity Lotz got to reprise the form of Canary, she really didn’t reprise the character of Canary, which is the entire reason I liked her character so much to begin with. I know that at this point, we’re progressing Laurel’s character, because Sara’s is, you know, dead, but it just sucked to see Lotz return and not be able to give us any of that charm.

That said, this sort of moment would work very well in a comic book, and happens all the time, but for the TV medium, when actors come back, I like to see what made them so great.

Aside from that, now, moving on to the positives:

We opened with a fight between two Canaries, our heroes have a frank discussion of the stakes at hand, and Ollie chooses to finally bring Thea into the fold and reveal his identity to her. A series-long fear would be that she freaks out at all the lies he’s told her over the years, but in a move showing not just Thea’s maturity, but the show’s maturity, she reacts positively, acknowledging the risks and sacrifices that Oliver has made to make it all possible, and thanks her brother for telling her the truth and for all he’s done for the city.

Guys, that was just the first eight minutes.

This episode was full-on crazy-town bananas of story and plot. And it’s great that this show can flesh out both. Plot is what happens, story is how it happens. There are a lot of shows that mix those up or can’t pull them off, but Arrow manages to do it pretty well, but when it knocks it out of the park, like tonight, it makes for my favorite episode of the season.

Whenever heroes reveal their identities, no matter how it turns out, it’s usually fun to just watch it happen. On Arrow, there were really only two main characters who didn’t know who Oliver was, and with Thea in on it now, that just leaves Detective Lance (but, c’mon, that guy totally knows). Thankfully, Arrow didn’t drag this out longer than it needed to. For Thea to still not know by, say, Seasons 5 or 6 would have been awful. Likewise, over on The Flash, eventually they’ll have to deal with this same issue between Barry and Iris, and I’m looking forward to that day, too.

Oliver’s return to Starling City also came back with one major misunderstanding: That he was still the big boss. And while he may still get to call the shots, he hadn’t realized that his absence (or, rather, his death, as Felicity correctly pointed out) had forced the others to move on and alter their motivations for what they were doing. While they all had always looked up to Oliver, and still do, him being gone forced them to take an ownership in the endeavor that they just didn’t have before. So when Roy stood up to Oliver over the Thea/Malcolm issue, it was nice to get to see this vigilante family have this discussion. And while Felicity’s sort of been a drag the last few episodes, when she called Oliver out on his BS, she was totally in the right, and Oliver needed to understand this. As Diggle eventually told him, what Oliver started has now become a legacy, one that is changing all around him day by day. Much like the artist or writer, whatever their intentions were when making their art, once it hits the masses, interpretation and reaction is all up in the air. Whatever legacy Oliver is creating, it’s impossible for him to be able to control every facet of it, and he needs to learn to deal with that.

The villain of Vertigo is a mixed bag on this show, and my feelings are pretty well reversed from the majority. General consensus is that Fringe‘s Seth Gabel’s performance of Count Vertigo, the over-the-top, Saturday morning cartoon villain, was terrible. My consensus is that he was wonderful for all of those reasons. It just added a flair of theatricality and insanity to the show. And while Peter Stormare is excellent in everything he does, and I can’t fault his performance on this show, having just another drug dealing kingpin is sort of run-of-the-mill at the moment, especially after we just had three episodes dealing with Brick.

The scene between Laurel and Detective Captain Lance at the end has been a long time coming. He’d all but told Laurel in their earlier scene that he knew she was the new Canary, and it was a bit charming that he thought that was her big secret. “What’s the problem? I already know. Pissed, yeah, but we’ll figure it out.” Then to just see them break down over the second loss of Sara, man, heartbreaking. A reckoning is coming on that front, and sooner, rather than later. Lance knows that Sara, Roy, and now Laurel, all close associates of both Oliver and the Arrow, but still hasn’t told anyone he knows that it’s Oliver. He’s a smart man, the writers understand that and they understand we’re not dumb. Ironically, the only ones who don’t know this are the ones keeping the secret.

But with the main conflict out of the way, we approach the who reason for the episode: Thea’s agreement to train with both Oliver and Malcolm. And the only way to do that is to go back to the Island, which just so happens to coincide with the flashbacks showing Oliver returning to Starling City. Arrow‘s ability to mirror both the flashbacks and the current story has always been a good one, but this might just be my favorite example.

Quick Thoughts:

– Yay, the DJ’s dead! Also, so, what, were both Roy and Malcolm just stationed outside Thea’s apartment, in full garb, waiting to jump in at a moment’s notice? Because just a few minutes prior, Thea and DJ Chase were sort of banging. Were they hanging around for that?

– Easter egg: Felicity threw out a mention of Daggett Pharmaceuticals.

– The scar on Laurel’s arm is still there. Nice to see she’s starting her own collection.

– While the scene between Laurel and her dad sharing a moment over Sara’s death was a good one, it was sort of weird to just see Laurel back at the Arrowcave in the next scene with no mention of anything.