After last week’s big cliffhanger, Arrow wrapped up its mediocre third season with a solid finale. “My Name Is Oliver Queen” was full of exciting showdowns and some fun references to the rest of the DCU, not to mention a happy ending. Yeah. The sun even managed to make an appearance. No more doom and gloom for The CW’s dark and gritty superhero? Season 4 might finally add some more color (you know, green) but this likely isn’t the last we’ve seen of the dar(h)k. More on him and the episode’s other easter eggs below...
Past Tense
When I heard that Arrow would be killing a character in the finale, I thought for sure that it was going to be Tatsu because of her involvement in the Suicide Squad movie, but she makes it out of “My Name is Oliver Queen” alive and returns to her life of solitude. Probably with her third of Akio’s ashes. Yeah, that was some pretty heavy stuff for The CW superhero show.
In general, the flashbacks this week were much better than they have been, mostly because Oliver was beating the crap out of people the entire time. And I’m not even talking about the torture of General Shrieve; I’m talking about the way he destroys Shrieve’s men. That was an intense fight sequence. A.R.G.U.S. Agent Amanda Waller was right, the man has talent. Having failed to protect Akio from the Alpha and Omega bio-weapon, Maseo leaves to become Sarab, Tatsu heads to a monastery and Ollie boards the Triton’s Daughter out of Coast City.
Legends Of Today
There sure are a lot of masks in Starling City these days. Even Dig is considering a costume to hide his identity. That’s after he, Felicity, Laurel and Ray ‘survived’ being exposed to the bio-weapon at the end of “This Is Your Sword.” If you watched this week’s episode of The Flash, you probably guessed that Barry would be involved in rescuing Team Arrow and that he’d be too busy dealing with Harrison Wells to stay and help out. Love the hot-tub line. I also liked the reference to Arsenal while the B-Team was suiting up.
Speaking of the Red Arrow, Thea made her first appearance as Speedy near the end of the finale and I’m pretty excited to see her fight crime full-time in Season 4. Rounding out the Ra’s resistance was Captain Lance, who is able to take time away from the bottle (and the Andreyko case) to bring the SCPD into the fold and, well, get Oliver shot. Okay, so that didn’t go exactly as planned. Neither did Ray’s mini-tests on the A.T.O.M. suit after the battle was won, but I’m sure he’ll have it figured out for his spinoff.
League Business
It turns out our hero wasn’t really brainwashed this whole time, but was actually running the long-con on Ra’s al Ghul. Surprised? Probably not. Even after he married Nyssa last week and became Ibn al Ghul, we all knew he was still Oliver Queen. Especially if you saw the title of the finale. It was also nice to see him use some trick arrows once he ‘found’ himself and a League of Assassins outfit in dark green. He must have done a little shopping in Nanda Parbat before leaving for Starling City. Of course, he never thought he would make it back, as dying in the plane was part of the plan to destroy the virus. As was Malcolm Merlyn becoming the new Ra’s, a development that has me very excited for Season 4.
Getting back to the plans that didn’t pan out, Ra’s was hoping to kill two birds with one stone by releasing the bio-weapon in Starling as his nemesis (and H.I.V.E. head) Damien Darhk happened to be staying in town. And while the hotel’s address wasn’t especially memorable, a few of the other locations (like O’Neil and Adams) were nice shout-outs to DC greats. 52 was also littered around the finale, popping up as an address, a news channel and date. Finally, I liked how both the past and present will have Oliver on his way to Coast City. Maybe, just maybe, he’ll run into that other superhero with a thing for green.
Arrow continues with Season 4 next fall on The CW. Created by Marc Guggenheim, Andrew Kreisberg and Greg Berlanti, the DC Comics inspired series stars Stephen Amell, Katie Cassidy, David Ramsey, Emily Bett Rickards, Willa Holland, Paul Blackthorne and John Barrowman.
