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TV REVIEWS: FTN Reviews Arrow Season 04 Episode 15: Taken

February 25th, 2016 by Todd Black Comments

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Taken

I don’t know who you are, or what you want….

Sorry! Wrong “Taken”. Ahem, this episode was very good, and dealt with a lot of cool stuff that’s been building for a while, as well as delivering some surprises, and have a character make her live-action debut.

“Taken” wasted no time in throwing Williams’ kidnapping in Oliver’s face, which of course led to many bitter confrontations within Team Arrow. Some of which were good…others were not.

Ok, let’s just get this out of the way. Felicity in this episode was bad. Which is sad, cause the intro to the episode was really good, with her physical therapy not going as planned. But the moment she found out about William, it went downhill from there. In case you’re wondering what the difference is between this blowup and the one in the Flash/Arrow crossover, in that one, he didn’t make a promise to keep William a secret. Here, in this timeline, he did, and thus was honestly blameless for withholding the information from Felicity and the others. Yes, some others knew, but that wasn’t his fault. Not that Felicity cared.

Adding to the pain was the ending, which almost totally ruined the episode. Ollie wanting to keep William away to protect him was honorable, and very Ollie, and it was his and Samantha’s decision to make, as it was their child. And yet, because he didn’t tell Felicity and ask for her “input”, she’s leaving him…oh! And now she can walk!…and thus walked out on him! Really? I hate that this walking moment came in this fashion, it could’ve (and should’ve) been dragged out more, made it more memorable. Now? It’s associated with a bad pun.

On the flip side, Laurel’s reaction to it was quite lovely, and I love how Lance put it into perspective. A note that I think was implied was that she was a bit scared that it could have been her and not Samantha. The shock of what her life could’ve been (at that age) with a child on the way probably rattled her a bit. And that I appreciate.

Alright, back to the fun. With Darhk revealing, in a fun and epic way, that he had William, the clock was ticking to get him back. But, with all previous attempts failing to work, Ollie decided to call in backup in the form of Vixen! Whom he met in an “animated” encounter. That was great.

vixen-arrow-0d66a

Vixen was at true highlight, and I’m now on the bandwagon to get her her own show. She rocked this appearance, and helped fill in the info that most people didn’t know about her via her CWSeed show. Her personality was great, and a good contrast to the other female heroes on the show. Also though, her powers looked great, and felt straight out of comics.

Even more than that, it was her knowledge of magic, and the ties that bind them, that eventually made for the biggest surprise/twist of the episode. As they rid Damien Darhk of his powers. This is a true first for the series. As usually around this time, the villain is ramping up their plans, and appear more unstoppable than ever. Here though, we have new ground, which makes it more exciting…and aggravating that we have to wait a month for Arrow’s return.

The only question for me right now is whether Ollie will restart his campaign for Mayor. He was forced to suspend it because of Darhk, but now that Darhk is powerless and in police custody, there’s nothing stopping him from running again.

“Taken” was another solid episode, and when it worked, it worked well. But questionable character decisions, and a terrible ending, stopped it from reaching its full potential.

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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!