Cons:
Why did we spend all of last week on Emiko Queen only to basically drop her for this hour of television? I assumed she would be the focus, but no. Instead it was about Laurel and Oliver confronting completely different things about their pasts. Sure, there were some hints of Emiko's presence here, and we'll surely explore it more next week, but it felt like an odd direction to veer after setting up so much good stuff last week.
I still think Diggle and Lyla are being incredibly stupid to go ahead with the "Ghost Protocol" or whatever. Curtis is right. But even beyond being annoyed with their plan, I also just find all this stuff with ARGUS to be pretty uninteresting. It feels so disconnected from the rest of the story. I hate that we haven't seen Oliver and Diggle on screen together the past couple of weeks. I know their lives have taken them on different paths, but their friendship is one of my favorite things about the show! Come on!
Also, that moment when it appeared that Diaz had killed Curtis, and we went to a commercial break... oh come on. You expect me to buy that? Please. Don't insult my intelligence. Curtis is the only person in the ARGUS story-line that makes any sense, and I'm completely, indignantly, on his side on this one.
It's not that I think the flash-forwards are all that great, but I do think it's odd to skip them this week and get no forward motion on all of these sluggish plot elements. When are we going to start finding out what's really going on? I'm annoyed by all of the delays, especially when we replace them with plots about Laurel confronting her past on Earth 2. Why is that the priority here?
Pros:
But to be fair, I actually did find something compelling about Laurel's story, specifically how much she and Felicity play off of one another. The story is simple - Laurel finds the man who killed her father in a car crash back on her own earth, and she freaks out about how he found his way to this earth. She thought she had killed him back on her own dimension. We later learn that this man is actually from the correct earth, and Laurel's problem has been solved.
The story was so basic and kind of dull, but the thing that made this work for me was Laurel's inner sense of growth and change. She's the DA now, so she can't run around as the Black Canary and kill old enemies on a whim. And another important change is that she's got allies. I love Felicity working hard to be a good friend to Laurel, taking her out for drinks after a successful interview, encouraging her to find the good in her heart, and make her absent father proud. Laurel has always been a confusing character for me on the show, but I'm a much bigger fan of fake replacement Laurel than I ever was of the original, and I like the friendship between her and Felicity a lot.
Oliver's story also involves something from his past. The son of his father's bodyguard, the one who got shot in the head on the lifeboat at the beginning of this whole crazy adventure, is out for revenge. Oliver has to help stop him, but he's also battling bad public opinion and calls for him to step down from the SCPD.
Again, kind of a basic setup, but there was a lot of good material here. Oliver has just learned that his father abandoned his second family, and he's now coming face to face with the consequences of his father's other actions. The Queen name is important, not necessarily to Oliver personally, but to the community he is from. There's a lot of baggage that goes along with that. Oliver comes clean and tells the truth about his father's actions, in the same way that he has decided to stop hiding in the shadows and take on the mantle of responsibility in the light of day. I think this is a really interesting direction to take a show that based so much of its premise on masked vigilantism, and I'm excited to see more.
I also just love Oliver and Dinah working together at the SCPD. I think it's a fun dynamic duo, and I like watching Oliver slowly get used to doing things the legal way. Dinah is a good person, and she's helping Oliver through a difficult time in his life just like he helped her, albeit in quite a different way. I'd love to see the two of them have even more screen-time.
Felicity and Oliver didn't have a ton of particularly substantial material this episode, but we see that they're still a team, they talk through their various problems with each other, and they're so supportive. I love the quick little kiss and "I love you," I love Felicity telling Oliver she's proud of him... it's all very sweet and domestic and uncomplicated. If only William were here.
That's all I've got for now. This episode was not at all what I was expecting and hoping it would be, but that doesn't mean there's nothing to appreciate here!
7.5/10
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