Yeah, it is. In a surprise to absolutely no one, Oliver rips the rug out from under Ra’s, and also the audience, as it were, when the third season finale of Arrow literally buttons everything up so neatly you might think you’d just watched the series finale. Alas, it wasn’t. They’ll be back for the fourth season in the fall, but as what exactly remains to be seen.
So, where did we leave everyone? So glad you asked. Let’s break it down.
Team Arrow gets rescued by Barry, and Malcolm gleefully shares that he sneakily vaccinated all of them, and hilariously angles for a thank you that he’s still waiting on. They hightail it back to Starling City, on the heels of the LoA jet, which is sabotaged while Oliver and Nyssa fight daddy and crew. Oliver and Nyssa safely land the plane (of course) and then Oliver tries to make nice with everyone, who are still a little, “Yeah, NO.”
They don’t have time to work that out when they learn that Ra’s supposed takedown of his arch-enemy Damien Darhk was a ruse and he’s actually unleashed four separate vials of the pathogen inside human carriers (niiiiice) scattered around the city. They don’t catch the first guy in time, but do catch the others, and sweet, handy Ray deploys an airborne vaccine, because … handy.
Thea returns in Roy’s red leather (called it).
Laurel goes to get help from her dad, who she calls out for falling back in the bottle (AND WHAT DID I SAY ABOUT THAT???). She shames him into helping, but he can’t quite call off the SWAT boys intent on taking out Ra’s and Oliver when they end up throwing down on the dam (which I don’t think we’ve ever seen before). Oliver gets the upper hand and kills Ra’s with his sword and prays the same prayer he received over him as he dies.
Then the SWATs take their shot and Oliver goes over the side of the dam. Fear not, though. Felicity, who’s been watching all this on a com link, pleads with Ray to go help but he’s busy with the vaccine, and she’s just at DefCon 1 panic. So, Oliver’s falling and then Ray’s suit swoops in and grabs him and sets him gently down. As they both come to a stop, we see that it’s a beaming Felicity driving it. She and Oliver laugh as she tells him she’d kiss him if she could get the helmet off.
The handy LoA armor saves his life, too.
They all regroup and Oliver announces he’s going to leave the city in their capable hands, and he asks Felicity to go with him. Two guesses what she says. Then he makes the rounds of goodbyes and Diggle’s still very unhappy with him but they make a sort of peace. And he hands off something to Malcolm as part of the deal for his help.
He tells Thea goodbye. I don’t recall a goodbye with Laurel and Nyssa, but their friendship is intact. It’s nice to see Laurel have an ally, too — there’s a cute throwaway line as Nyssa watches Laurel-as-Canary kick ass and pronounces herself an excellent teacher.
And then we have Oliver and Felicity driving into the sunset as she jokes about them getting him an LoA annulment.
Back at the LoA, we see what Oliver handed Malcolm — Ra’s magical gold finger cover. And he’s all too happy to announce himself the great and powerful Ra’s and tell the crew before him to kneel. They do, and then Nyssa struts in and condemns him for the whole thing being his master plan all along, and he essentially shrugs and tells her to kneel. And she does.
In flashback land, Akio dies in Tatsu’s arms and Oliver responds by torturing the general, but it’s Maseo who actually kills him. Tatsu begs him to stay but he can’t, and he leaves her. Oliver asks where he’s going and she says only somewhere they can’t follow. She says she’ll go back to a convent near where she grew up. Oliver decides that he needs to get his head right and be alone, so I’m guessing that’s when he went back to Lian Yu.
And SCENE.
All in all, it was a solid way to wrap everything but it did feel like we’re on the edge of a reboot. I think the contingent who aren’t all about the Oliver + Felicity angle felt like that piece of it was overkill, which I totally get. I did laugh, though, that despite the orchestration of a happy ending, there was no kiss in the episode.
The fakeout with Damien Darhk was only disappointing because we had a blink-and-miss-it moment of Christopher Heyerdahl, who *said* he was Darhk’s valet and who seemed to be killed but I call shenanigans.
Arrow will return in the fall. I’m not sure yet if I will. I kind of like the idea that this where I leave them, but I haven’t wholly made up my mind yet. Thank you for reading! You can catch the most recent episodes online at The CW and CTV websites, and on iTunes.
Photo courtesy of The CW