TV REVIEWS: FTN Reviews Arrow Season 7 Episode 5: The Demon

After the very visual and visceral episode last week, Arrow went right back to work with “The Demon”, and with some surprising results. Ones I truly appreciated.

First off, I was REALLY happy that Talia was “The Demon”, if for no other reason than I was fearing someone else using it as a “tribute” to Ra’s al Ghul even though we had likely never met that person before. But using Talia instead? Brilliant. Plus, we found out why she was there (Batman) and why she owed Diaz a favor (he helped her survive the island via his drugs). So it all honestly made perfect sense.

As was the reveal that Dr. Parker truly wasn’t on the up and up, which I had noted last week when I said there was no way that the procedures he used on Oliver were legal. Turns out, not only were they not legal, they were part of an experiment to make people “docile”, which actually sounds like something that was happening in Black Lightning back in Season 1, or was the plan anyway.

Seeing Oliver break through the conditioning with Talia was nice, as their connection was strong yet tense. The fight scenes with the two (both against the other and fighting side by side) were great. Including having their own version of the “hallway fight”. Albeit, not as good as Daredevil, but still good.

Talia being free opens up a lot of possibilities, as does their securing evidence against Parker to bring forth a totally valid reason for Oliver to be set free. Let’s see how it goes, after all…Elseworlds is coming…

Speaking of things that likely came from another world, Birds of Prey…kind of. Felicity, Dinah and Black Siren working together was actually rather cool. As they helped break open the case against Parker once Talia got them the data, and now they’ll take point to get them out. Seeing Felicity and Black Siren kind of warming up to each other is also a nice twist.

The Curtis storyline had me worried for a bit. As I’m not a fan of the character. I actually really liked how he admitted that he didn’t want to do field work anymore (or at the very least very dangerous fieldwork) because he didn’t have it in him anymore. This was very different from Dinah and Rene. So I’m actually a little sad that he did eventually jump back in and apparently liked it. But, considering he did go back to his tech skills before the end, it did work out.

Speaking of which, Silencer reunited with Diaz, who went to go get Anatoly, there’s no way this ends well.

All in all, “The Demon” moved the plot forward on many levels, all the while keeping things solid. Not everything worked, but a vast majority did.