Well...shit..so this was Arrow's mid-season finale, in this episode The League of Assassins has lost their patients and demands Oliver find Sara's killer within 48 hours or else they'll purge the city. Oliver finds out that Sara's killer was Thea, being controlled by Malcolm Merlin, but Oliver won't risk the life of his sister and takes the fall for her, forcing a trial by combat where Oliver gets his ass kicked by Ra's Al Ghul and gets stabbed through the chest and kicked off a mountain top...after it took him an entire episode to climb up, bad luck Ollie.So let's talk about this episode, the first thing is the reveal of Sara's killer being Thea controlled by Merlin, now on one hand, i didn't see this coming, I never predicted that it could have gone down this way and it was a nice reveal. But on the otherhand, it was because of a plot device that was introduced in this episode and the fact that Merlin was behind it all was a little bit dissapointing. Not to mention the video on Ollie's phone was so obviously not filmed on a camera phone and was so obviously put in there during post that it was rather ridiculous. If Arrow wants to create sciency tech mumbo jumbo then that's fine, but don't take everyday technology and make it seem better than it actually is. So this big mystery turned out to be a mixed back, though I do enjoy that Thea learns of Sara's death at the start of the episode which helps create this contrast between the two, even though it doesn't make sense why Laurel would tell her but I don't understand half the reasoning behind the decisions Laurel makes.
But Oliver obviously not going to sacrifice his sister to the League of Assassins, takes the blame for her, and I have a major problem with this, several characters throughout this episode where able to tell when people were lying to them through their enginious detective skills of...just knowing. Laurel's mum "just knows" about Sara's death, Oliver "just knows" that Thea didn't kill Sara. So when Oliver is lying to the masters of deception, it's surprising that none of them "just knows" that he's so obviously lying. I mean you can't have a common character trait amongst several characters and not have the person who would most obviously have that trait not actually have it! And the battle between Ra's and Oliver will take place at the top of a mountain, which the episode cuts to him climbing up the mountain because...i guess they didn't want to have the climb be one big scene cause that would be boring as fuck.
But this was something that I liked, the build up to Oliver's big fight, the performances and pacing of these scenes really made it seem like he didn't know if he was coming back, hell, they fooled me for a second thinking "wait, what if he doesn't come back..." so I felt like that was very well handled. And the fight scene itself was fantastic, there was no music, the editing slowed itself down, it just let the scene create it's own tension, and it really fucking worked. From just the choreography alone you could tell Oliver was not winning this fight, and it looked pretty damn brutal, I think it might be one of the best fight scenes in the show's run so far. And then of course it all ends with Oliver getting stabbed through the chest and thrown off the mountain...I loved this scene. It was so unexpected, so well put together that I actually thought they might have just killed off their main character...though i seriously doubt it because...like I said, he's the main character. And I also like how Oliver still managed to get a couple of hits in, though obviously was no match for Ra's Al Ghul. So overall I think the fight scene was the highlight of the episode.
Then there are the flashbacks of the episode, Maseo's wife being kidnapped by...I dunno, I think it was that Asian Lady Gaga from season one. And that's really the only major story development from their side. But in present time Maseo is now part of the League of Assassins, which was revealed very early on in the episode...don't know why. But I will say, I hated the tease of Oliver saying "when...it happened" come on dude, that was so obviously the writers teasing us, it just didn't feel natural at all.
Final point for the story, we learned Ray Palmer's backstory and we get a little bit closer to seeing The Atom come about. First of all, I loved his backstory, not so much for the events, but how it affected him. During the Deathstroke purge last season, Ray and his fiance were attacked by Deathstroke's soldiers, his leg was broken and his fiance was killed. But last week when he kissed Felicity, he broke a promise to his fiance that she would be the last woman he ever kissed. I loved the way how they used his backtory, it develops not only his character in more ways than one. The backstory is pretty standard development, but what I really liked was just how personal he made it, just the detail of how loyal he was to his fiance makes him all the more fleshed out, it was brilliant. And then him telling Felicity about The Atom suit, all I have to say about this is I want the Atom and I want it now! Seeing both Arrow and Flash slowly set up their own version of the Justice League on TV, I really want to see that already!
Also there was a nice little easter egg for the Lazarus pit in this episode, when Ra's said people have been trying to kill him for 67 years, and anyone that doesn't know Ra's would think "okay dude, there is no way you were 67 years old" hmm, maybe he has some sort of pool that keeps him young...oh wait.
Finally, something i've never really talked about in this show in detail are the action scenes, everyone always says that Arrow has the best fight scenes on television right now, and yeah while I can't argue with that, I also think there is plenty of room for improvement. Now don't get me wrong, the choreography of the fight scenes is excellent, it's how it's being presented to us that doesn't sit well with me. I don't know if it's the editing or the cinematography or both, but they're doing something wrong that makes them less intense and exciting. I think it might be a mixture between both, because yes there is shaky cam, but not a whole lot, and yes the editing is fast paced, but not too fast. They're not bad enough to become a problem, but when combinding the two, that's when it becomes a problem. So either slow down the editing or get a steadier camera and you could have some damn impressive fight scenes in this show, because they're have been a few.
This episode started off just sort of average, but really started to pick up in the second half and has one hell of a cliffhanger (Literally) and I'm very much excited to see where this show goes from here. I'm giving The Climb an 8/10.
-Danny
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