We’ve almost wrapped the third season of Arrow, so let’s take a look at the last episode that set up the chess board for tomorrow night.
In “This is Your Sword,” we found out the whole “Oliver will assume Ra’s mantle to protect the team” plan was in fact a ruse, which Malcolm was in on. Bad idea, that.
Oliver moves up his timeline on the reveal / ending of Ra’s rule because of the marriage and plan to burn down Starling City. Malcolm comes to see him and returns home to tell the truth to the team. (Seriously, how far is Nanda Parbat supposed to be?) At Oliver’s suggestion, he brings Tatsu with him to help make the case, knowing full well their first response will be to call bullshit that Oliver confided in him over them.
Thea’s out of the loop because she goes to see Roy and they reconcile and then he leaves her with his Arsenal jacket, to assume a mantle of her own, maybe?
Tatsu tells the team all about the events of Hong Kong, when Akio did in fact die, and then she goes with them back to Nanda Parbat, where they go hand to hand with the LoA and are captured, because it seems Ra’s thought he had a mole anyway.
Before that, Tatsu and Maseo face off and she begs him to stand down and come back to her, but he won’t. They draw swords to fight and she kills him. As he collapses in her arms and dies, he thanks her for releasing him and she sobs and sings the same song she sang over Akio as he died.
Diggle is called out to see Oliver in private, and Oliver wants to chat about the plan and is sort of surprised at exactly how pissed off Diggle is about Lyla’s kidnapping, because he’s slow like that. Then Diggle is returned to the clink with the rest of the gang. To test Oliver’s loyalty, Ra’s tosses in the Alpha/Omega vial to “kill” them and prove out Oliver as unconverted — after Malcolm tips him that Oliver is a faker (shocking!). Oliver doesn’t flinch as everybody starts yelling when the doors close on them. That includes gullible Ray, who came along with his super suit and had his ass handed to him.
And then we have the wedding, after a scene of awkward where Ra’s threatens Nyssa and tells her to get with the baby making ASAP. She swings a knife at Oliver during the vows and he isn’t fazed, and tells the priestess to continue.
That leads us to the finale, which will be a bit out of order with The Flash, where Oliver makes an appearance tonight.
The whole shenanigans of Oliver’s fakeout and the gang’s reaction was sort of “meh,” because, well, the show is called Arrow, y’all. I didn’t see that exact scenario coming but I knew something was up.
The thing that had the most impact for me was the scene with Tatsu and Maseo. The fact that he felt he’d died years ago anyway and this was a formality, but it fell on his wife to do it (when he’d likely been trying to get himself killed for years) was just huge, and beautifully done. I hope they find a way to bring Rila Fukushima back next year because she is amazing.
Here’s a sneak peek of the season finale, “My Name Is Oliver Queen.”
Photo and Video Courtesy of The CW.