Monday, November 20, 2017

Arrow - Deathstroke Returns / Promises Kept


Oliver (Stephen Amell) leaves Star City with Deathstroke (Manu Bennett), traveling halfway around the world to help Slade rescue his son from prison. Things become complicated when the learn the boy has been killed by a powerful crime syndicate and even more complicated after discovering Joe (Liam Hall) is not only alive but the head of the Jackals. Reunited only to discover his son has followed in his murderous footsteps, Slade will have to make some hard choices - especially after Joe's men capture Oliver and serve him up to Deathstroke.

The episodes fill in a bit of Slade's past. We see him struggling to balance his role as a father and government-sanctioned killer as well as his return to Joe following his trouble on Lian Yu and the series of events which caused a new rift between father and son and sent Slade to kill Oliver way back in Season Two. The second set of flashbacks feels a bit shoehorned in, allowing the Mirakuru to dissipate and return as the script demands, in order to get Slade reunited with his son for an extended period before leaving on his quest for vengeance. As for the less-maniacal current version of Slade, he makes his choice and appears to be willing to live with the consequences.

Back in Star City, Diggle (David Ramsey) and company deal with the return of Vigilante (Johann Urb), who it is revealed has a personal connection to Dinah (Juliana Harkavy), and a go after a new drug runner (Kirk Acevedo) who has been supplying John with the synthetic drugs to keep his tremors in check (when not killing people and robbing Palmer Tech and Kord Industries). The later forces Diggle to come clean to both his wife (Audrey Marie Anderson) and the team and search for an alternative solution to stay under the hood. Given the FBI investigation into Oliver, I'd say he needs to find one quickly.


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