Spoilers will rise…?
Sounds like a dead giveaway, pardon the pun, in the title of the latest episode Arrow 4×03: Restoration. Things are off to a rocky start for the Green Arrow and Metallo. Ok, sorry I can’t get used to Diggle’s helmet yet. Yet my commentary is useless here, because I don’t know how it could be improved. At least you can tell him apart from the balaclava-wearing Ghosts. Why is Diggle asking the Ghosts he apprehends who’s running the Ghosts? It’s obviously Damien Darhk. I understand he wants to know about Hydr- I mean, Hive (the Hive? H.I.V.E.?), but I doubts he’s going to get a clue from Henchman #34.
With a Meta-baddie drafted from Central City named Double Down and Diggle getting a clue from ARGUS about a mystery player named… Wait, she’s dead. What was the point of that? Well… We know. Oliver and Diggle’s reconciliation cannot be restored (another title pun) without some work. Which means that Oliver going after Double Down and Diggle after the mystery woman was simply a plot device. They both failed at their endeavours because they didn’t have each other.
Time for Felicity to go Big Sister and give them some tough love. They share information, they’re ready to take down the bad guy, friendship always wins, yadda yadda. Meanwhile, Curtis has done his homework (he’s basically Felicity’s Felicity here) and found some stuff on one of Double Down’s tattoo cards. Rather than just track the owner, the owner can track the card. And here he comes. Felicity’s reaction is to pull Curtis into the actual Arrow lair. Which we learn is a hidden floor in Palmer Technologies. Also, this gives Double Down’s valuable information about Green Arrow, doesn’t it? I’m just saying, there was no point going into the lair- Oh wait, there’s guns in there?
Cue a scene in which Felicity goes Rambo with a machine gun. Yeah, she’s still not aiming and not looking but somehow she chases off the bad guy. Diggle and Oliver pick him up as he’s taking the express route to Central City. A messy storyline to get Diggle and Oliver thinking on the same page, but it works because Diggle wants to catch his brothers’ killers. Which makes me think that if he didn’t have that revenge motive, there would never be a reconciliation.
In the meantime, there’s apparently flights to Nanda Parbat that let you bring a corpse. We’ve all have to assume that they take Palmer Technologies jet, but customs would’ve inspected that coffin. Also, I guess either Thea or Laurel fly the plane. And they carry the coffin between them. I’m saying give me a scene in there so it doesn’t look like Nanda Parbat is around the corner.
It should be obvious by now that nobody should be using the Lazarus Pit. Least of all, Sara. Nyssa is the only character that seems to know what to do here. Laurel and Thea and Malcolm Merlyn are just going over old stuff so that Malcolm gives in at the end and agrees to resurrect Sara. We all know it’s happening (again, Legends of Tomorrow is permeating every storyline in Arrow and The Flash, but here it just gets messy), but it does seem we go back and forth to take the guilt from Laurel and put it on Malcolm. When Sara Lance (Caity Lotz) returns, she’s enraged and has to be chained up.
Why did Sara have to come back? Well, she didn’t have to – not this way. And they should’ve found a different way to bring her back for Legends. I would’ve gone for an Earth-2 version there. Or you could have made it a mystery and said she found a way back on her own, something to discover.
Highs/Lows/PickAnyCard:
- I didn’t like the way that they wrote Laurel in this episode. No, there was no reason for Laurel to bring back her sister from the dead. Malcolm Merlyn is not even in control here. Really, this whole return from the dead could have been written better. How about Quentin making a deal with Damien Darhk for Sara’s life? That would make for a better explanation of his betrayal. But this didn’t happen.
- Nyssa is the one that stays true to her conscience, reminds Laurel that this return is her doing and sabotages the Lazarus Pit so it can never be used again. Malcolm is a pushover in this episode that does not act like a leader. I would completely welcome an outcome in which Nyssa takes over as the next Ra’s Al Ghul.
- I did like the outcome of Diggle and Oliver finally making a truce, but the execution was just messy. Still, it’s done. Finally.
- Double Down’s power is to turn the playing cards that are tattoos into real playing cards. Or deadly playing cards made of… Paper? Metal? Skin? In my mind it would make more sense if they actually were tangible for a short time and then disappeared, reappearing on his skin. Instead, they seem to remain tangible. This is more magical than meta stuff. Shouldn’t he ran out after the threw them all?
- Felicity’s phone being messed up (so “messed up” they have to run the matrix screensaver on it) is obviously Ray Palmer. Still alive. Probably living on Felicity’s phone. Bet you there’s going to be some lame explanation of why he chooses not to tell everyone that he’s alive. Another Legends of Tomorrow alumni.
That will do for now.
Never Think Impossible 