Arrow "The Fallen" Review

I'm gonna be honest, i am on the brink of giving up on Arrow, i mean i'll still watch it but i don't know about reviewing it every week because if the show is going to do the same thing every week, then i'm going to end up saying the same things about it every week...and then we get an episode like this that actually tries. You may have noticed a giant fluctuation in my reviews for Arrow, that is mostly because we go from several bad episodes to a good one so when the good one shows up, i'm ecstatic for it, but i don't have that much excitement for this one because i'm tired of that, yes this episode is good but you know what's better? When all the episodes are good, or at the very least there is consistency in the quality. This is The Fallen, where Thea was stabbed and nearly killed by Ra's Al Ghul because-just as I predicted-Ollie would have no choice but to use the Lazarus Pit to bring her back to life, in return he agrees to become the heir to Ra's Al Ghul and...they go through with it. Yeah no last minute switcheroo or lucky loophole or implausible escape, he becomes the heir, will this stick? I doubt it.

You know what this episode has that a lot of others don't? A point. You've heard me complain about this before, so many episodes and sub-plots come across as straight up filler, they don't add to the plot, connect through a metaphor or a theme, they're just there to waste time, and that is the best thing I can say about this episode, no scene or conversation felt like a waste. The biggest and most often repeated fault that this show has is Ollie saying he's going to do something, people complain, Ollie does it anyway, argue about 3-4 times, repeat next episode. Here, they still argue, but it's only once, and do you know what comes out of that argument? A new opinion, a new perspective, plot development, realistic reactions, you know, the stuff that these type of arguments would need if they were to have any point in existing!

For nothing else I can say that this episode had focus, it knew what it wanted to tell and it didn't waste time with stupid sub-plots or lazy filler, it was a well paced story of Ollie joining the league of assassins eventually. One could argue how simple of a plot this is, it's not complex, it doesn't have a running theme or major twist, but at this point, i'm just glad that the writers of this show can do simple, they can have just one story to tell and they can do it right. It developed the plot of the season along, it had interesting discussions and character growth...and PG-13 sex...woo.

Also I should mention that this episode in particular had excellent performances from all the cast members. I've said that Stephen Amell is the saving grace of this show, except he hasn't really had an opportunity to show that in a while, but everything about his performance during the hospital scenes were very well done. Ra's Al Ghul actually had really good character development by learning of him losing the woman he loved and showing enough compassion to Ollie to atleast let him say goodbye to his loved one, because yeah, he's not a monster, at least not entirely, he still understands people will be ruled by their emotions and sometimes it's good to indulge that. And for the first time ever I actually believes the romantic chemistry between Ollie and Felicity, no, i don't think this will last and no i still don't want them to be a couple, all i'm saying is that for the first time ever, i bought it.

My only real complaint with this episode is the pointlessness of Thea's losing her memory temporarily, it seems that it was only done to avoid her arguing against Ollie staying behind (because lord knows how we need more arguments on this show). So it doesn't seem to be for any major character arc or new perspective, but more of to get her out of the way for the second half, and considering that she was the catalyst that got them this far, that seems rather lazy.

This isn't a great episode, it has problem but i think the good outways the bad in this case, it was a good episode and really, that's all i wanted. 7/10.

-Danny