Arrow – Starling City

By starrymag | October 21, 2019

By: Courtney Groom

 

 

 

When we left off in Season Seven we found out the archer made a deal with The Monitor (LaMonica Garrett), leaving his family behind. Meanwhile, in the future, Mia (Katherine McNamara), William (Ben Lewis) and the new team found a way to defeat Archer with the help of slightly older Felicity Smoak (Emily Bett Rickards). With present day Felicity leaving Oliver to raise Mia, things come to a head as Oliver Queen (Stephen Amell) and team Arrow head into Crisis.

 

The premiere opens with a near exact replica of the first scene of the pilot episode, with shipwrecked Oliver racing to light a bonfire and trying to catch the attention of a fishing boat passing by Lian Yu. Except, in this version Oliver had not been stranded for five years, but rather twelve years.

 

Returning home to the Queen mansion Oliver is reunited with his mother Moira (Susanna Thompson) and new husband Malcolm (John Barrowman). Having a little look around the mansion we soon hear a very familiar voice, as coming down the stairs is Oliver’s former best friend Tommy (Colin Donnell). Oliver then asks to see his sister Thea (Willa Holland) when everyone’s faces turns. Tommy says that he tried to do everything to save her, at which point Oliver is very confused and asks to see Thea again. Moria then breaks the news that on her 18^th birthday (in thus we saw in Season One) Thea took Vertigo, but instead of being saved she OD’d.

 

Later Oliver steals Moira’s card key for the Queen Merlyn Industries and breaks in to steal dwarf star particles from the applied scenes lab in his green arrow suit. And it is no surprise that someone has beaten him to the chase with dead bodies scattered around with arrows in them. But it wasn’t Oliver who killed them, as someone dressed as The Hood shows up, revealed to now be Adrian Chase (Josh Segarra) instead of Robert Queen. Another familiar face, Black Siren (Katie Cassidy), shows up and asks why Oliver is invading her earth. And it becomes clear that Oliver is in fact now on Earth-2.

 

In the now Black Siren’s underground bunker we learn that the Dark Archer has beaten him to the dwarf star particles. With Oliver still not realizing everything on his earth is back to front, he jumps to the conclusion that Malcolm was, as he was on his earth, the Dark Archer. Oliver confronts Malcolm about the theft and learns he is not the baddie in this version of events.

 

Oliver is then introduced to his bodyguard, John Diggle (David Ramsey), who he soon realizes is his John from Earth-one. As they finally find some time alone to talk, Oliver explains The Monitor’s very dire warnings about the future. He also shares that he has seen Oliver die and about needing the dwarf star particles to help prevent the Crisis from happening. Oliver pleads with John to go back to Earth-one, but as John says, “Brothers need to stick together.”

 

At a club party Tommy leaves to the underground car park. As he is about to enter his car he stops and says, “I know it’s you…. Oliver.” Thus, it reveals that Tommy is, in fact, the Dark Archer. Oliver gets captured after being tranquilized by bad body man Rene (Rick Gonzalez) and bad cop Dinah (Juliana Harkavy) and is tied up.

 

Tommy then reveals his whole plan, as baddies do, and that the Glades are to blame for Thea’s death. He explains that he wants the dwarf star-powder to destroy them and pay for what they did to Thea. Oliver says revenge is not the way to go and it’s not what Thea would want, but nevertheless Tommy continues with his plan.

 

Oliver manages to escape, quite easily, and passes by Rene and Dinah where he jokes and says, “On my earth you had a better teacher.” Similar again to the pilot episode, the Arrow engages in a rooftop fight with the Dark Archer as he actives the device to destroy the Glades for good. Oliver manages to get the upperhand and defeat Tommy, also persuading him not to destroy the Glades before capturing him.

 

In between Oliver’s mission we flash forward back to Mia and William in the future trying to capture and defeat Archer once and for all. But with Felicity now gone to be reunited with Oliver once more, the new team is finding it hard to cooperate and work together.

 

Oliver returns to the bunker once more now he has the dwarf particles to say goodbye to Laurel and Adrian. Laurel is disheartened by the fact Oliver can no longer stay as she, in the end, enjoyed having him around. Adrian then asks Oliver if he is from a parallel universe as they both has the exact same costume and skill set. Oliver then tells him that if he was from another universe than he advises Adrian to change his costume color to green instead of black. It will give people more hope.

 

Before finally heading back to his earth Oliver goes to the police station to say one last goodbye to Tommy and his mom, as on his earth they’re dead. In a tear-jerking moment Oliver hugs Moira for the final time telling her that he loves her. She is unsure as to why he is so upset and tells him she will see him at home later on.

 

Laurel rushes in to then say the city is being attacked. A fiery light begins to destroy the building, “incinerating” it and anything it touches bit by bit. Dinah and Rene disappear first, then Moria as she shouts for Oliver and finally Tommy as he asks what is going on.

 

Diggle uses Cicso’s (Carlos Valdes) gadget to open up a portal to take them home, in which Oliver, Diggle and Laurel all jump through leaving what was Earth-2 now to nothing. Although it has not been confirmed yet what exactly happened to Earth-2, it does not look likely that it did survive.

 

Now with Oliver completing his first mission from The Monitor and Diggle and Laurel now helping him, will he be able to help stop the crisis? Also, can he prevent himself from dying as The Monitor said he saw?