Previously on ARROW…
This was a rare miss for the show this season. While, as a whole, the story has been engaging and I look forward to new episodes more this year than I have in a long time, I didn’t feel much of a connection to this episode. The cast of characters were just spinning their wheels to get to the important moments.
Oliver tried to connect with his newly-discovered sister Emiko; Diggle and Lyla send the Suicide Squad Task Force X Ghost Protocol to go after weapons dealer Dante; Felicity struggles with telling Oliver that she’s pregnant, but manages to bond with Earth-2 Laurel Lance, who seems to be adjusting well to not being a homicidal maniac; and in the future, William gets to know his sister and everyone starts to figure out what Felicity wanted William to know.
It’s all well and good. The narrative of the season moves forward. Dante escapes and Oliver and Emiko manage to move closer to having a familial relationship and Felicity manages to hold off on killing Ricardo Diaz, who turned his back on the Ghost Protocol to make sure Dante doesn’t try and kill him. And she eventually told Oliver that he’s got a bun in her oven.
The communication between all parties has improved a ton over the course of seven years. That, at the very least, is a positive. Nothing was more frustrating than watching situations that could have been resolved if someone had just opened their damned mouths.
Felicity may not have killed Diaz – Diggle captures him and he eventually gets sent back to Slabside – but that doesn’t mean he made it out of the episode alive. It’s possible that he did, sure. Diaz tends to escape death like a cockroach. But in his jail cell, he gets doused in gasoline and lit on fire, and the last we see of him this episode is his arm, aflame, reaching out of his cell.
If this is the last we see of Ricardo Diaz, the character has had an amazing run on the show. Kirk Acevedo has been one of the best villains ARROW has had over the years. I would probably say he’s better than even Manu Bennett’s Slade Wilson. Acevedo’s portrayal of Diaz has been threatening and downright frightening.
Yes, I’ll be sad to see Acevedo go, but I definitely think Diaz has run his course as a villain, and it’s time to move on. Given that we see Dante – played wonderfully by Adrian Paul – has some sort of association with Emiko at the end of the episode, it’s safe bet that we’ll slide the big threat over to him. Let’s not be surprised if we discover that Emiko’s mother, who we believe to have been murdered a year ago, is also alive and working for him. That’s a pretty common move for this show.
While this episode was nothing special, it certainly wasn’t bad. Hopefully they can get back on the horse next week.