Alright, after 2 weeks off, ‘Arrow’ returns, with a fairly good episode that felt a little old-school, while still keeping the momentum of the season going forward, and providing a fairly nice send-off for one original team member. I also enjoyed seeing and talking about so many previous characters from past seasons of the show, as we had both Roy and Nyssa guest star, a flashback to Malcolm Merlyn, and mentions of previous villains Ra’s Al Guhl, Damien Darhk, and Count Vertigo.
Jumping in, the episode starts with Nyssa infiltrating a strange new group that almost looks like League of Assassins, but turns out to be the Thanatos Guild, a splinter group formed by Malcolm Merlyn shortly before his death. She escapes with intel that the group is going after Thea and sure enough heads for Star City.
Meanwhile, Team Arrow is having a going away party for Thea as she is leaving with Roy. She says some heartfelt goodbyes to the team and heads out. Much to Roy’s chagrin, she jinxes their escape and they are attacked by the Guild and rescued by Nyssa who takes them back to HQ. The Quiver Crew is brought up to speed on the situation by Nyssa and the theme of the night starts to come out as we realize Nyssa, Oliver and Thea have all taken up heroic mantles to right the wrongs done by their fathers and both Oliver and Thea begin to realize they like the person they are under the hood, which poses some problems for Oliver as Diggle still wants to be the new Green Arrow and also for Thea as Roy still wants her to leave with him.
The team, with Nyssa, Thea and Roy (now sporting a Red cap since he has no costume), tracks down Merlyn’s “treasure map” that the Guild came to the city for and discover a puzzle box (“Hellraiser Box” as Felicity puts it), and has to fight their way out as the Guild attacks them once more. After getting it back to HQ, Roy prepares to leave as Nyssa says she will take the box away from Star City and figure it out on her own, but Thea steps in saying she feels responsible for whatever Merlyn was planning and knows Team Arrow is the best resource for Nyssa to get the box open.
So they get to work and Roy is alarmed, worrying that Thea is going to continue to find excuses to not leave with him. When confronted by her about it, Roy says wherever she wants to go, he is going to stay with her. They get the box open and discover blank parchment within. Not even the old League trick of burning it is enough to reveal its secrets.
Meanwhile, the Guild has planted a bomb to lure out Team Arrow and Thea, so Thea leads the Team to confront them, learning that they need her blood to reveal the contents of the parchment. While facing down with the Guild leader, Thea is struck and some of her blood hits the paper, right before she stabs the Guild leader with what appears to be a mortal wound which causes the group to flee.
In other stories for the night, Dinah becomes suspicius of the SCPD Chief when she shows up at a crime scene Dinah is investigating and takes drug evidence from Dinah, which adds to her and Curtis’s fear that if they have discovered so many dirty cops so far, it stands to reason someone higher up might be corrupt. They start to investigate her and discover the drug she confiscated was Vertigo.Soon enough, they discover she removed all Vertigo drug cases from the station thus confirming that she is working for Diaz, who apparently is also dealing Vertigo now (does this make him the new Count Vertigo?). While all this is going on, Curtis becomes infatuated with one of Dinah’s co-workers, though whether or not Curtis’s new crush is a dirty cop or not has not yet been revealed.
Thea’s blood activates micro-bacteria within the parchment revealing a map of world-wide ley lines, similar to the ones Damien Darhk was interested in a few years ago, revealing 3 other massive intersections similar to the ones under Nanda Parbat, where the original Lazarus Pit was. The group realizes Malcolm had found more Lazarus Pits and that is what the Guild was after. Thea is disheartened at her father’s actions. Later, when speaking to Roy, she reveals she plans to go with Nyssa to destroy the new Lazarus Pits. Roy reveals he is going with her, as wherever she is, that is where he wants to be. She tells him about how she thinks it might be her calling to put on that Hood and right wrongs, and he seems ok with it. They might just be the new traveling superhero team in the ‘Arrowverse,’ though I am unsure how often we will really see them if Thea is really off ‘Arrow’ for good now. Before she leaves, Thea tells Oliver he needs to stop stringing Dig along and let him know that Oliver is keeping the Green Arrow mantle and then they are off.
BOW-STRING THEORIES:
- Any chance these new Lazarous Pits could herald the return of the actual Laurel Lance?
- Could Curtis wanting to go to Thea’s party be the first sign of the feud starting to cool between the teams?
- Mildly sad to see Nyssa annul her marriage with Oliver, I enjoyed her “sister-wife” remarks to Felicity
- And how pissed is Diggle going to be now that Oliver wants to keep being the Green Arrow? Could he leave and join Team Dart?
- Thus ends my musings on Thea’s comings and goings for Season 6. Personally, I hope she is either off the show or makes a triumphant return for a FULL SEASON next year. I really dislike when major characters like Thea just pop up and disappear the way she has been for 2 seasons.
Not a terrible episode, but it makes me wonder whether it was all just set-up for Thea’s send-off, or whether any of this Thanatos Guild stuff will actually play into the greater plot for Season 6. Personally, I don’t really see it as the mystical stuff with the Lazarus Pits does not really seem to fit the gritty crime stuff that Diaz is all about, but who knows? He could be involved with those Lazarus Pits after all maybe even having found a way to sell vials of liquid from the pits as “energy drinks” or some nonsense like that. Looking forward to seeing where the show goes next week when we dive back into the main arcs of the season!
