Arrow: Season 3, Episode 23: My Name is Oliver Queen
Of course Oliver had a plan. His team constantly doubts him this season, but they should already know how things are going to end up. The only one with justifiable anger is Diggle and I honestly think he’s more upset than he should be. Yes your best friend kidnapped your wife and left your baby alone, but everyone is okay now and thousands upon thousands of people are going to live because he did it. Everyone is quick to weigh the many versus the few, especially when it comes to Oliver, but no one seems to understand when he does it.
We got a little taste of the Flash here, which makes complete sense and explains Oliver’s appearance and comment on that show. Luckily His team trusts Barry far more than they trust Malcolm and came together a little bit more. Malcolm saved everyone’s lives by vaccinating them all when they weren’t paying attention before. He really is a genius. He even walked away with what’s probably the biggest W of them all.
Oliver had to resort to some pretty fierce trickery here to defeat Rā’s. That makes a whole lot of sense, because he totally got his a** whupped in spectacular fashion before. I wondered how he would win here and it was pretty much through cheating, which I respect fully. It’s definitely the only way to win a fight against someone that’s so superior to you.
There was a lot of reconciliation here. Everyone did a decent job of making up and Ray is probably the best and most understanding guy on the planet. He freaking watched Oliver and Felicity decide to run off with each other with a smile on his face. I just hope he survived that blast at the end of the episode. Maybe he just shrank down in the explosion or something. Sadly though, with the release of Marvel’s Ant-Man quickly approaching, the whole shrinking superhero schtick may be cheapened here. You know, that thing that happened with Marvel and Fox’s Quicksilvers.
This was definitely a very fitting ending for such a dark season. The only real weak point was the flashbacks. It was weird that they were more of an explanation of Maseo’s past than Oliver’s. They invested a lot into the backstory of a character that didn’t even stick around. Maybe we’ll be lucky enough to see more Tatsu though.
Oliver left on a very optimistic note, but with Malcolm as the new Rā’s and think Damien Darhk looming on the horizon, thinks could get pretty bad again pretty quickly. He left his team behind to protect Starling City, but I’m sure they’ll need him again soon. Until then, I hope the team and the new Speedy can hold down the fort while Oliver FINALLY works on his happily ever after with Felicity. Let’s just see what type of sh*t hits the fan that leads to Season 4 and Legends of Tomorrow.
Jonathan Thomas Jones is a speculative fiction author and founder of geekhavenreviews.com. He has been passionate about all things geek for his entire life. See more about him at jonathanthomasjones.com and follow him on twitter @jtgloryjones.
