Arrow "Nanda Parbat" Review

No Flash this week sadly to review, in fact it's gonna be a while till our next Flash review, but we still have some Arrow to hold us over. Nanda Parbat sees everyone learn the truth about Sara's death and Thea hands over Merlyn to the league as punishment, but Oliver and Diggle go to save him, get captured and Ra's Al Ghul claims he wants Ollie to be his heir. Meanwhile Ray has finally built his ATOM suit, and got some action with Felicity. While the flashbacks have Ollie and Maseo's family try to head back home but Waller's men cut them off and attack them, separating Maseo & Tatsu from Ollie & their kid.

Before i get to this episode in detail, there's something that i noticed always happens in the show that i've never noticed before. Whenever Ollie goes to get changed into his uniform he always grabs his bow first, surely he would grab that last, i mean he can't put his suit on while holding a bow in one hand, i've never really noticed that, it's kinda stupid.

As for the episode itself, it was just kind of meh, but it made me realise that the plot for this season seems to be moving at a snails pace. Everyone is still talking about events that happened 15 episodes ago like they only happened last month and the progression of the characters and the overall story has been so slow that when i think about it, not a whole lot has happened in this season, i mean Sara dying was a major way to start the season but what's happened since? Laurel became the Canary except not really because she's still arrogant as fuck and isn't that good of a fighter or have a good repertoire with the rest of Team Arrow. The biggest event that happened was Thea becoming part of Ollie's world, and also not trusting everyone, then trusting them, then not trusting them, her emotions are constantly changing and i have no idea where she stands, also why is she still surprised that people lie to her? Surely she should be used to it by now.

And you can tell the show is running out of reasons to keep Merlyn alive, seriously, he's kidnapped by the league and Ollie tries to save him because he doesn't want Thea to feel guilty...um what? She's been trained to kill, she's seen her friends & family die in front of her eyes, had her entire world flipped upside down, i think she's been through enough where sentencing Merlyn to death is not going to affect her all too much. Also you know, with Merlyn dead the league will stop trying to kill you and your friends & family, being honest, i'd say it's worth it.

Also Roy & Diggle don't seem to have much of an arc this season, they haven't had to go through any major change or story events, they're really just there to be the voice of reason throughout everything, which is fine, but i wish they had a bigger role in the story because i really like them as characters. And the flashbacks too are being really stretched out, i mean it feels like we only got half of a flashback this week because they don't have much to do while in Hong Kong. Oh, and since when can the ATOM fly? I mean i'm not the biggest reader on Atom comics but has he always had a jet pack? I mean it's cool but, surely the first thing you would have him do is shrink because you know, that's his main power.

Overall this episode was meh, and it highlighted the majority of problems with the show, inconsistent character development, slow paced narrative, poorly paced flashbacks and a whole lot of problems feeling like excuses. I'm giving Nanda Parbat a 6/10 (And what the fuck is a Nanda Parbat anyway?).

-Danny