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TV REVIEWS: FTN Reviews Arrow Season 06 Episode 02: Tribute

October 20th, 2017 by Todd Black Comments

After a divisive start to the season in the eyes of many, Arrow needed a stronger step forward as it continued a very important Season 06. For my money, “Tribute” did exactly that, balancing Oliver’s personal, political, and crimefighting life in some very interesting ways.

First off, Oliver has been outed…AGAIN!!! But, he was “taking it in stride”, which led to the epic name drop of Bruce Wayne…yep, he’s in the Arrowverse! Yet, just when Oliver thought he had a handle on it, an FBI agent opened an investigation against him…oh boy. Oh, and then, as Oliver tried to be a mayor to rebuild the city, Anatoly came back to shake things up! Man can’t catch a break.

What I like about Anatoly’s return isn’t just that it builds upon what happened late last season (with him and Oliver’s separation), but also, we’re getting a “greatest hits” of sorts with Oliver’s Rogues Gallery. Black Siren in the premiere, now Anatoly. Who’s next. What’s more, I loved how Anatoly shot his hostage after Oliver though he’d saved him. It showed he was not stupid. I also liked his “good man” speech, as that was an important thing for his character.

Now to be outdone, I loved Oliver’s continued struggle to be a father for William. Some people have been giving the show a hard time for “how” Samantha died. That was honestly a means to an end to get to this story. Oliver wants to do right by his son, even giving him advice on how to fight bullies, but he knows that he can’t do everything, and he doesn’t want to make promises he can’t keep. Which set up the fun twist of Oliver once again wanting to not be the Green Arrow…and giving it to Diggle…but…

Diggle’s not exactly well. Some people didn’t catch that he got hurt on Lian Yu during the premiere, but now, we see and hear it in more detail. Diggle’s got nerve damage. Damage that WILL get worse in the long run, and now he’s agreed to be Green Arrow…even though he almost killed Dinah tonight…oh…this is going to get bad…

On the brighter side, I loved how the Felicity/Curtis storyline went. And honestly…this is a question that NEEDED to be answered. Some of these people don’t have jobs…HOW ARE THEY LIVING?!!?!? Well, not only did we get our answers, we got a fun new partnership that honestly makes a lot of sense. I wish them both the best in their new endeavors.

Oh, and hey! No flashbacks! That’s pretty cool!

Now, I do think that they NEED to introduce our big bad soon…they can’t pull a Prometheus again and have him arrive later just to “start”. They need to pull the curtain back soon so we know what we’re up against.

In the end, “Tribute” did a great job of laying down stories for the season and putting some surprising things into the works.

4.5 out of 5 nerds

Todd Black is reader of comics, a watch of TV (a LOT of TV), and a writer of many different mediums. He's written teleplays, fan-fictions, and currently writes a comic book called Guardians (guardians-comic.com). He dreams of working at Nintendo, writing a SHAZAM! TV series, and working on Guardians for a very long time!