Like the other CW superhero shows, this was Arrow’s last episode before it goes on a four week break. With that it needed to do what the other show did quite a good job at, which is tying up some loose ends while setting up some new plot points that the final part of the season can pick up and run with.

Arrow in the past has been a show that has had a fairly inconsistent track record with big episodes. Thankfully I can put this one down as a positive one. This episode did everything it needed to do. The biggest plot point it had on it’s plate was Cayden James. Going into this episode, I thought that he would be around towards the back end of the season before possibly switching him out for another big bad, however this all happened this episode. I thought that the writers decision to both flesh out Cayden through flashbacks and then kill him off was a great idea. Previous to this episode, us as the audience had no real connection to him, however this episode formed that connection and then took it away from us.

With that, I thought that the decision to make Dragon the one who betrayed Cayden was the logically decision as all the other members had some form of connection to Team Arrow already. Even though it was an expected decision, I thought that the way the final scene played out with Dragon and Cayden was excellent. Up until that point, Dragon seemed like just another henchmen for Cayden to control, however with this scene they showed that he has what it takes to be a crime lord villain in this city.

However, despite doing some great positives with the main arc of the episode, there were a few negatives to be had. These negatives are ones that are rather minor in the context of the season, however when viewing just this episode, they stand out amongst some of great stuff this episode had to offer.

The first is the writers decision to make William an idiot and go to the abandoned theatre. While I thought we did get some great stuff with William being there, especially the observation made by Cayden about this ending with Oliver’s son like it started with his own, it doesn’t excuse the poor motivations of putting him in that place to begin with. William as a character is one that I think is very inconsistent. Some episodes I think they utilise him great and write him as a typical teenager, while other times he is illogical and does something completely stupid that any kid that age would never do.

The second is the constant drag on from Rene about how the two teams will remain separate. While I enjoy how the writers decided to split the team up into two divisions, us as the audience do not need a constant reminded that the teams will not join back together officially. I thought that the reason for driving them apart was well done because both teams in some way betrayed each other, but having Rene constantly making reference to it makes his character come off as childish when he was the one to start the cycle originally.

Into the final negative, this also comes from an arc I was on board with previously and that was Quentin and Laurel. Last week’s episode did a great job in setting up the conflict within Laurel, which made the arc of Quentin wanting to redeem Laurel interesting to me. However in this episode they do a complete 180 with Laurel. While I think there is still some conflict within her, this episode made a strong point of saying that at this moment in time, Laurel will not turn. That in itself is not an issue, however the issue comes when we focus on Quentin’s response to that. Quentin went straight out creepy in this episode. Considering he has been fighting with himself about whether he will try and redeem Laurel or not, the overbearing nature he showed this episode seems way to unnatural to the character of Quentin.

Overall, this was a really solid episode from Arrow. If it wasn’t for the minor negatives that by the end of the season will be meaningless, this episode could have been one of the best of the season.

8.5/10