TV REVIEWS: FTN Reviews Arrow Season 7 Episode 13: Star City Slayer

The thing I love about Arrow is that sometimes they know that to truly make things work they need to go away from the epic fight scenes and focus on the subtler moments. And “Star City Slayer” did deliver some good plotlines on that front. However, they also can’t help but be cliche at times, and sadly, the actual “slayer” turned out to be a character I couldn’t care less about. But more on that later.

I was THRILLED for the more pronounced return of the flash-forwards, because aside from the small clip at the end of last weeks 150th episode, we haven’t had it in a while in a significant way. So seeing everyone from that timeline in action was good stuff. And the reveal that Blackstar, aka Mia, aka Mia SMOAK was Felicity and Oliver’s daughter was a very nice twist. It adds up a lot of interesting elements to the future storyline, especially since Felicity is unsurprisingly still alive in the future.

And while it’s weird to “know” what’s going to happen in the future more or less, it’s interesting to see the pieces start to fall into place. Dinah is teaching Zoe how to fight, Felicity got full ownership of Helix, which will become Smoak industries, and now, Will is living with his grandparents, thus he’s out of Star City.

While there was a bit of weird writing in regards to William calling his grandparents to take him away, the intent and purpose of the matter was very logical. There’s no way that William will have a normal life in Star City while Oliver is the Arrow and Felicity is supporting him. His grandparents made a good point when they said that Oliver had brought him nothing but pain ever since he came into his life.

So though “predictable”, having Oliver let him go at the end was a big step, and I can’t imagine how he’ll react to Felicity being pregnant with his child.

Before I get to the Slayer storyline, i want to note that Curtis leaving Argus like he did felt sudden, but it did feel right. His VR program aside, it was clear that he was on the outs with the group, and he needed to find a place to truly help people in the non-gray areaway, and this humanitarian place sounds like a good choice. I doubt he’s fully gone, but, it will help free up space for other stories.

Which, sadly, brings me to the Slayer storyline. After last weeks “Vigilante Fan” villain, I was very curious to see how this would go, and thought I had a good idea who it was. Turns out, I was WAY wrong, and that’s not a good thing. Stanley was easily one of the weakest elements of the Slabside plotline, even with the reveal that he was a killer. So for him to be the Slayer was ok at first, but then when he did the whole immobilizing them and telling Oliver that his friends didn’t “know him like he did”, it was painful to watch.

Not that the actor did a bad job per se, he sold the craziness of Stanley, but I just couldn’t find myself to care.

The only really good part about it was the horror-esque scene in his house that ended up getting Dinah seriously hurt. I wonder if that’ll affect her powers.

Regardless of the damage Stanley did, “Star City Slayer” worked enough on the other counts to ensure that the momentum of both the present and future storylines are moving forward. Now…can we focus on Dante? Please?