Arrow: Brothers & Sisters (7x14)

This was okay. I have the same complaints about this episode that I've had generally about this season, but there was also some great stuff in here.

Cons:

I know I'm a broken record, but the plot is still moving in such a sluggish way! We're getting in to the home stretch here, and I'm still completely in the dark about so much. I get that this is intentional, but it's also... annoying. We still don't know where Felicity is in the future. It's strongly implied that Oliver and John are both dead, but when did that happen? What's the big thing that went down and caused this terrible rift between our core group of friends? We're not getting enough information in the future, and we're not doing enough setup in the past.

We finally see Dante, who has been set up as this big bad, but... he's kind of just... a master criminal? There's no personal stakes to any of this. All season we've been hearing how ARGUS needs to catch this guy because he's the worst - worse than Diaz. But is he? Sure, we have this plot twist at the end where Dante has a connection with Emiko. But even that doesn't really justify John and Lyla willing to reopen the Suicide Squad. The Emiko story still has promise, but even this week we didn't get to see much of why she's been included in this story.

Pros:

Felicity's character development this season has been really interesting. I like that her ruthlessness comes from a place of love and devotion. Now that she's pregnant with the baby that will become Mia, we can see how that ruthlessness can increase, but also how her love and compassion leads her to make the right choice. When Felicity and Oliver were having problems, right after he got out of prison, the problem seemed to be partially that Felicity wasn't allowed to make the same mistakes that Oliver had been making for years. Here, we see that Oliver doesn't agree with Felicity's desire to kill Diaz. But he'll back her play, no matter what. That's so important to hear. Also, it was super adorable to see Oliver react to the news that he and Felicity are going to have a baby. It's so sweet, and it makes the sad future all the more poignant.

We got a good amount of Original Team Arrow, and Felicity even called it "OTA." The fact that Diggle chose to protect Felicity instead of going after Dante was really powerful, and it reminded me of their amazing friendship. I hope we get to see more of that. We also got a bit of a focus on Felicity's newer, more controversial friendship with Laurel. I love that Felicity calls Laurel in to help with her plan for vengeance, but instead Laurel is buying her food and convincing her to celebrate her pregnancy. It doesn't mean that Laurel is completely, 100% a good guy now, but her affection for Felicity seems to be genuine, and I'd be interested in seeing even more of that.

It looks like Diggle is going to be resigning from ARGUS. Honestly I'm thrilled about that. I hope this means he'll work more with the SCPD, and Team Arrow specifically. I miss John and Oliver's friendship, and it looks like the rest of the season is maybe shifting towards more of a focus on it.

In the flash-forwards, while I'm annoyed at a lack of obvious plot development, I did enjoy seeing Mia and William start to get to know each other a bit more. They both have the experience of being raised by some pretty intense and often difficult people, and it's nice to see that they're choosing to foster that connection instead of drowning in resentments. We also get some intriguing hints about the rift between William and his parents. We see, back in the current time-line, Oliver trying to call William. He hasn't heard back from him, but he keeps calling. In the future, we learn that when William went to live with his grandparents, he never heard from Oliver and Felicity again. So... what's the explanation here? Is it as simple as William's grandparents preventing access, or did something else happen after a while to cause that break? I'm interested. As slow as the flash-forwards are moving, I do rather like the material we are seeing.

I'll stop there for now. This episode was juggling a lot of stuff, and while there were pieces that were successful, I'm ultimately frustrated by the sluggish pacing, the weird focus on Dante and Diaz, the lack of integration for Emiko, etc. Hopefully things manage to come together in time for the end of the season!

7/10