Arrow Review: Penance (Season 5 Episode 4)

Arrow Season 5 Episode 4,  “Penance,” should in fact be called “Lessons Team Arrow should really have learned by now.”

Case in point: just about everything that happens in this episode.

Number One: Diggle, you should really know better. Your team is never going to leave you in there. Your wife is never going to leave you in there.

You should know by now, that you pretty much married the female version of Oliver Queen. Stubborn is not her middle name, it’s her first name. No one is going to take your objections into account, so you might well not have made them.

Number Two: Oliver, you really should know better. Felicity isn’t going to follow along with every cockamamie plan you come up with. You two don’t have “that kind of relationship anymore,” though, to be honest, she never did follow along when you did, anyway.

You want her on board? You need to communicate. Also, this advice would probably work for just about every other facet of your relationship.

Use your words, Oliver. Use your words.

Number Three: Felicity, you should really know better. You can’t send the newbies out by themselves. They literally have like three days of field experience.

“Go. Do not die” is not enough of a pep-talk for them to go out and, you know, not die. They don’t know what they’re doing. You know how this works.

Or, wait, do you? Do any of you?

At times, while I was watching this episode, I had to make an actual pause and go – who are these people? What show am I watching? Is this Earth-2?

Because my Team Arrow was a family, not just a collection of people who inhabited the same place. And in that alternate universe, Felicity might have needed convincing to go after Diggle, but Lyra – her friend – and Oliver – the man who is supposed to know her better than anyone else – would have provided that.

In that alternate universe Felicity would have come up with a better plan, one that involved the team, which, of course, would have meant that the newbies weren’t free to go get their asses kicked.

Which would have resulted in much less pain for Wild Dog.

Also, in that alternate universe, Thea, the only person left in Star City who is actually capable, would have gone to help the newbies, because my Thea, she wasn’t a robot who was so in denial about who she is that she’d let other people suffer.

I miss that alternate universe. Where is it? Can I go back?

Maybe I’m not on Earth-2. Maybe THAT is Earth-2. But, if it is, I’ll gladly take the changes.

Send me back, please. Send me back.

Other things to note:

• All my sympathy for Wild Dog has disappeared. Wave bye bye. I don’t think it’s ever coming back. Church can keep him.
• But, just to be clear – is it only Oliver who has to learn lessons now? Because this kid certainly didn’t learn anything.
• You’re not Roy, kid. You ever will be.
• Lyla and Oliver are two peas in a pod. We already knew this. Left to their own devices they won’t really use common sense.
• That being said, why was Lyla treating Felicity as if she had the plague? They show had led me to believe they were close.
• Remember when Oliver was in the League of Assasins and Lyla was comforting Felicity? I do.
• Why don’t the bad guys ever kill the good guys when they have a chance? Or viceversa?
• Dude, military prisons are so easy to break into. *rolls eyes*
• Wild Dog is disrespectful AF, by the way. Felicity has a name.
• Dark Flashbacks Oliver looks surprisingly like …present Oliver.
• Shouldn’t we have tried the magic spray that was going to get you out of prison, you know, BEFORE?
• Rory and Felicity’s conversation is, BY FAR, the best part of this episode. BY FAR. I like Rory. He’s my favorite of the newbies. He’s got a compelling story, he’s nice, not useless on the field, and also, he seems to understand that team = family.

What did you think of this episode of Arrow? Share your thoughts in the comments below!

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Arrow airs Wednesdays at 8/7c on The CW.

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