Plenty of familiar faces return to Star City.
Warning: Full spoilers for the episode below.
It was a night of big reunions on Arrow this week, and not just because Colton Haynes returned to reprise his role as Roy Harper. Four major players from seasons past returned in one form or another. “Unchained” had a lot of material to juggle, but it did so deftly and efficiently. This episode easily ranks among the best of Season 4 to date.
It’s hard to pinpoint any one reason why “Unchained” worked as well as it did. No one storyline or character conflict stood out from the rest. Everything just worked together smoothly in a way that doesn’t always happen on this show. Director Kevin Fair (a veteran of Smallville in its later years) surely deserves some credit for that. Fair delivered an episode that was slick, stylish and tightly paced throughout.
Fair also helped keep up this season’s high standard when it comes to action scenes. The stunt coordination and choreography have really improved lately, resulting in great moments like Ollie and Roy’s parkour chase, Nyssa’s bloody jailbreak and the especially awesome Nyssa/Katana duel. With The Flash and Legends of Tomorrow constantly upping the ante when it comes to superhero spectacle, the best thing Arrow can do to stay competitive is focus on the martial arts factor.
Haynes certainly didn’t disappoint in his brief return to the show. It was disappointing how abruptly Roy was shuffled out of the picture in Season 3, so if nothing else this episode allowed the character more closure. It was fun to see him briefly play the antagonist before hooking up with Team Arrow and donning his old suit again. But ultimately, the big moment for Roy came when he said his tearful goodbye to Thea. Haynes promised a “really sad” conclusion to this episode in our recent interview with him, and he wasn’t exaggerating. Maybe “bittersweet” is a better description. Roy was given a happy ending, as far as these things go in Star City, and it was really more a matter of him lamenting the fact that he won’t get to spend his life with Thea.
Willa Holland certainly helped sell that goodbye scene. Holland is rarely one of the standout actors on the show, but this week she had plenty of compelling material to work with. Much of what annoys me about Thea’s arc this season boils down to the fact that the whole “out of control, murderous rage” angle is too similar to what Roy himself went through earlier in the show. This episode showed that there’s potential to do something different with that angle. It’s almost as though the writers are using it as an allegory for assisted suicide. Sure, the territory is a little more murky given that Thea literally has to kill so that she can keep living, but it’s still an interesting direction to take her story.
It’s also welcome to see Ollie so directly intertwined in that struggle. This episode dealt head-on with the fact that Ollie carries the weight of the world on his shoulders. No matter the problem, he finds a way to blame himself. As Diggle pointed out, it’s basically his super-power. Ollie’s struggle to accept Thea’s decision and let her confront death on her own terms is powerful stuff. By the end of the episode, you really felt his pain as he dealt with the notion that his last surviving family member is not long for this world. It’s fitting, though. Thea is only in this state because Ollie refused to listen to reason and let her die after Ra’s al Ghul stabbed her last season. Now she’s suffering from the fallout of that act, and this time there’s nothing he can do about it.
Arrow: “Unchained” Photos
Arrow: “Unchained” Photos
Arrow: “Unchained” Photos
Arrow: “Unchained” Photos
Arrow: “Unchained” Photos
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Arrow: “Unchained” Photos
Arrow: “Unchained” Photos
Arrow: “Unchained” Photos
Arrow: “Unchained” Photos
Arrow: “Unchained” Photos
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Arrow: “Unchained” Photos
Arrow: “Unchained” Photos
Arrow: “Unchained” Photos
Arrow: “Unchained” Photos
Arrow: “Unchained” Photos
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Arrow: “Unchained” Photos
Arrow: “Unchained” Photos
Or is there? The final scene laid out the core conflict for next week’s episode. Nyssa dangled the Lotus in front of Ollie, but he’ll have to kill Malcolm Merlyn to possess it. We’ll see if Ollie has matured to the point where he resists that temptation and respects Thea’s wishes. Though you have to wonder if Malcolm might willingly sacrifice himself if it means saving his daughter’s life. Either way, I wouldn’t be surprised if the ultimate, ironical twist is that the Lotus’ ability to counteract the Lazarus Pit means that it also cancels out Thea’s resurrection, leaving her dead either way.
The flashbacks effectively tied into Ollie’s personal struggle this week. Celina Jade stopped by to briefly reprise the role of Shado and help Ollie wrestle with the massive pile of guilt he had acquired by his fourth year of exile. Initially it was disappointing that Shado appeared only as a hallucination, but her reunion with Ollie was no less tender because of that. And based on the outcome of this fever dream, it’s clear that some supernatural strangeness is starting to go down on Lian Yu.
Alongside all of this, Felicity also had an important week as she dealt with her struggling company and battled a new foe in the form of The Calculator (Everwood’s Tom Amandes). Frankly, the twist that Calculator is Felicity’s father was anything but shocking. It was already a popular online theory being floated about (well, that and Damien Darhk), and the blatant similarities between the two characters in terms of look, mannerisms and workspace decor clinched it. But obvious or not, this twist is a welcome wrinkle in Felicity’s increasingly chaotic life. Calculator looks like he’ll be a fun addition to Team Arrow’s rogues gallery.
But at the end of the day, Felicity’s story this week was more about her rediscovering herself and her ability to lead. If Felicity’s PalmerTech storyline and her relationship with Curtis sometimes feel divorced from the rest of the show, at least these elements help define her as something other than a sidekick and a love interest to Ollie. This episode celebrated that fact and gave Felicity some of her best moments of the season. Even if that “Pwned!” line was a little lame.
While the prospect of Roy Harper returning to Star City was exciting, it was impossible to predict just how well this week’s Arrow would turn out. “Unchained” fired on all cylinders, offering a healthy blend of banter, action and dark character drama. Haynes delivered a great performance as he helped give his character more closure, but he was far from the only actor to shine this week.
