The tension that’s been building all season comes to a head as Oliver Queen and John Diggle come to blows over Oliver’s leadership abilities.
Previously, on ARROW…
We get back to the main narrative this week, as Oliver and Diggle shift their focus to taking out Dragon’s Vertigo drug operation, which is bankrolling everything from his bought off city officials to the hired guns who seem to cover every inch of Star City. But there’s a problem: Diggle has lost his faith in Oliver’s leadership, based partially on his jealousy over not being able to be Green Arrow any more and based partially in… honestly, who the hell knows.
The partners say things that they can’t take back and then come to blows in the Arrow Cave as Felicity yells at them to come to their senses. They manage to put their differences aside long enough to blow Dragon’s drug factory all to hell, but the serenity doesn’t last long. Diggle quits the team and joins his wife over at ARGUS, the formerly shady government agency that’s now on the side of good.
While Oliver and Diggle are taking out the factory, Curtis and Dinah are in a shootout with the cops that are on Dragon’s payroll when they try to meet with the few clean cops left. Curtis takes a bullet, which his Mr. Terrific costume stopped. But he ends up revealing his identity to his new boyfriend, who isn’t a fan of vigilantes. Curtis spends the rest of the episode obsessing that he was going to get dumped, but the officer shows more of an open mind than any of the main characters on the show have and says he hasn’t fully formed an opinion yet. At least someone’s happy.
Oh, and Earth-2 Laurel Lance continues to con her doppel-dad while working for Dragon.
This was a great episode with plenty of action. More importantly, it helped me pinpoint what was nagging me about this season’s story: it’s a rehash of season 7 of BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER. During the second half of the seventh season, Buffy lost the confidence of her closest allies, and she was cast out of her home while the other Scoobies and the Slayerettes tried to decide how to take out the First Evil, who had basically taken over Sunnydale. In order to win back everyone’s trust, Buffy had to give up her Slayer powers, or at least give up being the sole Chosen one.
Heading towards the end of ARROW’s sixth season, I’m guessing Oliver is going to have to relinquish a level of control over Team Arrow in order to bring everyone together to defeat Dragon. There’s a lot of potential for a great story to tell the rest of the season. If more episodes are like this, we should have a good time watching everything.