Gosh dang it…THE FEELS!!!!
Say what you will about Arrow Season 3 in regards to consistency, but when they hit you? They hit you hard. “Broken Arrow” truly lived up to its title, with numerous shocks and twists that really made you wonder how it was going to end, and then when it DID end, you were probably crying, or enraged…or both.
Picking up literally right where it left off, Ollie was still rocked by the fact that Roy took the fall for him, turning himself in (while in Arrow garb) to prove HE, not Ollie, was The Arrow.
I liked how Ollie was ready to sign a full confession despite Roy’s act. In fact, if it wasn’t for Laurel, he probably would’ve done so. This led to numerous fun moments on the show. From Lance “discovering” the Arrow Cave (with a nice dig callback to season 01), to Diggle forcibly stopping Ollie from trying to save Roy in prison, to of course, Roy being IN prison, and beating up inmates who tried to kill him. Fun!
Props to Colton Haynes here for a great job playing Roy throughout the episode. He showed many sides of the character that we have only gotten glimpses of before. His loathing of himself for what he did to the officer from Season 02, his conviction to helping Oliver despite putting himself at risk, and even his intellect as he formed a master plan with Felicity and Diggle to save them all, and give Ollie a way out.
Oh, and that scene between him and Thea? Wow. I’ve always said that Roy and Thea were the best couple on the show, period, I don’t like that they won’t be together again most likely.
Which obviously brings us to twist No.1. Roy faked his own death! That was classic, and surprising, as you didn’t think that Team Arrow would try such a stunt without informing Ollie. The tension was there, you knew something was going to happen as you saw the knife get passed around. But then the guard “saved”? Him. Whew. Then the guard STABBED HIM!???! WHY?!?!
Oh, but he’s alive! YAY!!!
This actually led to a weird moment where Roy literally left Starling City because he was “dead”. In some ways this makes sense, especially when you read how the writers only had a few year plan for Roy himself. But it’s still sad to see him go. Who knows? Maybe he’ll appear in a certain spinoff…
Which leads to twist No.2! Ra’s killed Thea! No doubt about it this time! Even if Ollie was right outside that door once he stabbed her, she’d bleed out in minutes flat. The cold for the record helped stop the bleeding for Ollie. That being said, the fight scene itself was pretty epic, as Thea got to show off her training once again. But, once again, one does not simply “defeat” the Demon’s Head.
Obviously (by both logic and previews), a Lazarus Pit is in our future, but what will be the result? And what will be the cost to both Ollie and Thea if they do it? We’ll find out…
Then, there was the Villain-of-the-week! Cause we of course needed to have that…
On the plus side, seeing Ray take point on this to stop Deathbolt was fun. Especially in how it showed he was still a very, VERY, inexperienced hero. This development led to some great conversations with both Ollie and Felicity. On the downside, though Doug Jones did his best with the time granted to him, Deathbolt was kind of a dud as a villain. His entrance was great, but everything else? Not so much. Why was he in so many power plants? Yes, it charges him, but he lingers there? What about the banks he was supposed to rob?
Also, the ending fight started out great with the neural link up, but then Atom was able to beat him with a few punches…where’s Ollie’s did nothing? That made no sense. Remember, the Atom suit is made of metal, even a light metal would do serious damage to an unprotected man like Deathbolt. Just saying…
Finally, the flashbacks brought some much needed insight as to what the heck was going on. Turns out, Waller WASN’T behind the attacks on Ollie, Maseo, and Tatsu, Schriev was! AND, he wants to release the Alpha-Omega virus to cripple China! Hello plot twist!
In the end, “Broken Arrow” followed through on a lot of threads and delivered a powerful episode. Yes, some things didn’t gel, but the overall is powerful enough to overcome those flaws. It’s a very uncertain future for Team Arrow, we’ll have to see how it all falls out.
Todd Black
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!
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