Arrow "The Magician" Review

FULL SPOILERS FOR EPISODE

So this week on Arrow a lot happened but then again we're left with the same burning question of "Who the heck killed Sara?" Another suspect has been knocked off the list and now I honestly have no idea who was the one behind it. I mean, I'm pretty sure we're all out of big-time archers in DC, especially in Green Arrow lore.

Komodo was a no (so far, he could be lying), Merlyn is a no, Thea wasn't in Starling to have killed Sara, and Ra's al Ghul was unaware that Sara was dead until Nyssa return to the League to tell him. There was an interesting little part that had me speculating something wild but I'll get to that when we hit one of the coolest bits of the episode, and season as a whole so far.

Before I even get into it: Nyssa was a driving force in this episode and every second she is on screen I am reminded of why I love this woman. A beautiful, powerful woman who takes nothing from no one...except her daddy the immortal Demon lord. I get it. It seems that every episode with her in it is good, but when she shows up it is freaking great. In a way too, though, she seemed to be a replacement for Sara on Team Arrow for the episode, serving as the one who is a killer and doesn't really know a way around that.

Though, interestingly enough, we come to find out that Sara's training with the League did not maker her a full-time member in the eyes of Ra's al Ghul. Sort of like Bruce Wayne in Batman Begins. He spent years training with the Demon but was never a full member of the League. Granted, he kind of destroyed their headquarters, but still.

The episode starts right where we left off from last week, where Nyssa barges into the Foundry looking for Sara and Oliver and Roy crap their pants from fear. I would too. Oliver tells her Sara is dead and she goes to see the grave, Laurel already there. The two have a brief conversation in which Laurel blames Nyssa and the League for the death of Sara, since had she never been involved she never would have died. But without the League she also never would have survived after Lian Yu, so, eh. Nyssa barks back at her, saying Laurel is weak and unfit to wear the jacket Sara wore. She also admits to protecting Sara during her time with the League, not necessarily training her as much. Probably protecting her from Ra's al Ghul, which is interesting.

I really wish this week would have focused the flashbacks more on Sara and her entry into the League and why she needed to be protected rather than Oliver's adventures in China. Sure, the theme of the ending of the flashbacks and the end of the episode were the same, but it would have made more sense and we've been waiting for it for quite a while. They've hinted that they are going to in the future, but when is the question now.

Anyway, Oliver discovers that Sara was tracking Malcolm Merlyn and finds out that Sara was tracking a man named Jansen as well as tracking Merlyn. Team Arrow and Nyssa head out to find him, and it was really cool to see how they operate now. We haven't seen Roy, Diggle, and Oliver in the field sneaking about in their costumes, or even their natural environment of Starling City, so it was great to see it. Also, having Roy and Diggle partner up was excellent, as obviously Diggle could handle himself but it shows some of of Daddy Diggle protecting the young and inexperienced in fighting, such as Roy. Oliver could also handle himself.

Nyssa finds who she thinks is Jansen but it turns out to be Malcolm, who displays improved fighting ability since his final battle with Oliver and Diggle and takes her down, but Oliver snags him with a tracer arrow and gets nanites in his system to track him. Nyssa and Laurel, back at the Foundry, get super mad that Oliver didn't take him out, no matter how many times Oliver insists he isn't a killer. To smack that argument in the face, the two bring up the fact that Merlyn killed 502 people in the Quake from season one, including his own son. Which, yeah, kinda warrants the death penalty. Oliver's moral code, though, disallows that.

Diggle and Oliver manage to track down Merlyn, who tricks Oliver and tells him to meet up in person in a very public area to talk. Meanwhile, Nyssa and Laurel have a chat again where Nyssa really comes out to Laurel about her feelings for Sara and promises on the life of the Lance sisters that she will find and kill Malcolm Merlyn, who she is dead set on finishing off.

Oliver and Merlyn meet and in a very interesting and intriguing conversation, Oliver tries again and again to almost convince Merlyn that he was the one who killed Sara. However, Merlyn retorts, saying that he helped Thea escape the battle against Slade but doesn't tell him about Thea's training. He does, though, swear on Thea's life that he was not the one that killed Sara.

Though Merlyn is really hard to believe, it's also been shown very heavily that he loves Thea and will do anything for her. In that way, it's easy to see that he's telling the truth, by swearing on the life of not only his daughter but his only remaining child. In the other way, Merlyn is an absolute monster and can't be trusted at all. It's tough to see one way about it.

Nyssa finds out that Thea is Merlyn's daughter and goes after her, after she and Roy have been hanging out at Verdant for a while. Thea wishes to get the club back and Oliver is happy for her. He should be pretty worried, though, that the Foundry is right beneath Verdant, and some people might go looking underground for something. But that's just a minor problem in the grand scheme of things, of course. Because who killed Sara?!

She takes Thea captive and summons Merlyn forth using smoke signals. So cool. Oliver goes after her too. He helps Thea escape and engages Nyssa in a battle, since she's fed up with him and his justice thing. Merlyn shows up too, and we get the best action sequence yet this season and arguably one of the best in the show, as three of the best archers go hand-to-hand(-to-hand) in battle. All three sides are very much against each other's beliefs, too, but it's great to see that everyone on the show now is balanced and no one is over-powered like Slade.

Throw Komodo into that mix and you've got Green Arrow heaven in that fight...as far as archers go, of course.

Merlyn manages to pin down Nyssa but Oliver manages to pin down Merlyn, with our hero the last one standing and the arrow pointed right at him. He decides to let Merlyn go on the count of him killing Sara, since he believes him that he didn't, but raises his bow again on the count of Tommy and the other 501 people killed in the Quake. His emotions get in the way when Merlyn throws in the fact that he's Thea's father, and Oliver lets him go.

The two archers return to the Foundry where Nyssa gets mad and tells Oliver that he's a great big idiot for not killing Merlyn, even punching him straight in the face. And get this: Oliver, like a champ, tells Nyssa he's putting Merlyn under his protection and declares war on the League of Assassins.

:O :D :O :D ?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!

GREEN ARROW VERSUS RA'S AL GHUL. YO.

Sorry, that was a throwback to last year when I got hyped for the Green Arrow-Deathstroke throwdown. Which was totally hype.

But yeah, the episode ends with Felicity returning with, "What'd I miss?" and honey you missed a lot. Nyssa was here, and she was great. Laurel and Nyssa come to respect one another, as Laurel continues to train at the Wildcat Gym (ha!) and Merlyn and Thea continue to keep Oliver in the dark regarding their relationship. Which goes to tell me that the path to Mia Dearden is clear as day...but doesn't tell me Thea killed Sara because the timing is off.

Oh, and Nyssa returns to the League while Ra's is taking a bath (Lazarus Pit, probably?) and tells him about Merlyn's status of being alive and Oliver basically declaring war on the League, which Ra's takes with open arms. Somebody call BATMAN.

In the flashbacks this week, Oliver kills a man for no reason until he finds out that he used to work for Waller, even with Eddie Fyers, the island villain of season one. There, it's confirmed that Waller was indeed working with him to take down a plane, but in a very Kiritsugu Emiya style (for those of you who get that reference, I love you), Waller wanted to take down the plane for the purposes of killing just one woman: China White. Now she's in Hong Kong and Oliver is tasked with finding out why.

So like I said, flashbacks were kind of pointless other than to remind us that China White is still a thing on Arrow and to see Amanda Waller yell at someone, which is always a lot of fun.

But the material in the present continues to be great, with Arrow playing with a less-episodic format this season with the continued Sara mystery. Now, honestly, I can agree with Oliver that the trails have gone cold.

Outside of a few wild speculations. The first of which is that Merlyn was lying but I doubt that. I honestly hope his role this season is as Thea's gateway into becoming Mia Dearden, I'd be satisfied with that. The second of which is, guess who, Slade Wilson. Why say that?

During the three-way fight, Merlyn drops a little bomb on Oliver: "No prison on Earth can hold us [the League]! Not even your prison on Lian Yu!" To which Oliver sort of falters in his form but retains it instantly. Earlier in the episode, too, I was wondering, "How's good old Slade holding up?" They did mention him a bit in the episode. So if the League can escape that prison, whose to say that Slade can't? Sure, his method of killing isn't with arrows, but it would knock anyone off of his trail and he has more than enough reason to want to kill Sara. It's a face she would recognize, which she obviously did before dying.

My third guess is outlandish but I only think of this because of the events of the New 52's "Green Arrow #0" in which we find out that Tommy Merlyn is alive and being treated by mysterious folk. So yeah, my third suspect is Tommy. It's very possible that Merlyn could have salvaged the body of his son--whose grave we have never seen, by the way--and has also trained him to become a killed, and he has taken up the name "Merlyn" to clear the identity of his father. But that's just wild, wild speculation. I'm still holding out for it to be Komodo because why would you not want it to be Komodo?!

Thus, the mystery continues. Who knows, maybe it was freaking Harrow or Cupid or Richard Dragon or some other C-list super villain. Only time will tell, and at least next week we're getting an episode of Arrow whereas The Flash is leaving us empty. And it's a Felicity episode. Boom.


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