arrow: “Irreconcilable Differences”

This went on SO LONG.

Arrow decided to blow up its team in the midseason finale, then reveal at the very end that all its villains are working together as a team too.



And I mean ALL the villains. Caydeyn Jaymeys, Evil Bank Manager! Black Siren, Earth-2 Psychopath With A Heart Of Gold! Anatoly, the Russian Guy Who Was Nice Last Season! Vigilante, The Dissapointing Identity Reveal! And Richard Dragon, that guy who sold Diggle some steroids once They’re all working together instead of two of them1

The episode started with Oliver and Felicity’s reception, which was like ten minutes of show that was an almost complete waste of time. I like Oliver and Felicity, but goddamn, this was indulgent.

Anyway, the team breaks up over the usual lying-trust-spying issues. One of the team members gave up Oliver to the Feds. The show worked hard to make us think it was Curtis, then worked hard to make the team think it was Canary, so obviously it had to be Wild Dog, who got turned based on threats to his daughter. Then the team gets back together to try to stop James from getting Another Part Of His Superweapon (tm) and it doesn’t go well and they all yell at each other and the newbies get fired and/or quit. It’s all very drama.

Once again, I can’t argue with the execution of this season, but I can argue with what the execution is in service of. A boring enemy, a bunch of the same interteam drama we’ve seen for five seasons, and a general sense of pointlessness. I hope the back half of the season makes up for it.