Arrow Review: “Unthinkable”

Many revelations occur as the battle continues against Deathstroke’s army.

Title: “Unthinkable”

Cast and Crew
Director: John Behring
Writer: Marc Guggenheim and Andrew Kreisberg

Stephen Amell as Oliver Queen/Green Arrow
Manu Bennett as Slade Wilson / Deathstroke
Katie Cassidy as Dinah “Laurel” Lance / Maybe the Next Canary
Emily Bett Rickards as Felicity Smoak
David Ramsay as John “Dig” Diggle
Willa Holland as Thea Queen
Paul Blackthorne as Quentin Lance
Colton Haynes as Roy Harper
Katrina Law as Nyssa Al Ghul
Caity Lotz as Sara Lance / The Canary
Audrey Marie Anderson as Lyla Michaels
Summar Glau as Isabel Rochev
Cynthia Addai-Robinson as Amanda Waller / White Queen
John Barrowman as Malcolm Merlyn
Michael Rowe as Deadshot
Viv Leacock as Raven
Michael Adamthwaite as Torque
David Nykl as Anatoli Knyazev
Celina Jade as Shado

Full cast and crew may be found here.

Premise

The second season comes to an explosive conclusion, the Arrow falls further into alliance with A.R.G.U.S., and Team Arrow begins to resemble the one we know from the comics.

Diggle and Lyla have a baby on the way. Thea is just on her way.

The flashbacks will continue, but at least past-Ollie has left the island.

High Point

The Arrow’s plot to take down Deathstroke actually misled me—and it made perfect sense.

Low Point

Where is the army? How is this not an emergency / invasion demanding support?

The Scores:

Originality: 3/6

Effects: 5/6 The effects work well overall. The shot of the ship against an island was obviously CGI, but it looked impressive, in the way the obvious background effects in the original King Kong look impressive.

Acting: 5/6 The actors do well, especially considering how little screen time some characters get this week.

Story: 5/6 We have a worthy conclusion to this season. I sometimes wish the soap elements were handled a little less, well, soapily.

Emotional Response: 4/6 This week’s dialogue remains cheesy, but not as cheesy as Agent of SHIELD‘s. Very few people can write this kind of dialogue for live action well, and there is a limited supply of Joss Whedon.

Production: 5/6

Overall: 5/6

In total, “Unthinkable” receives 32/42

8 replies on “Arrow Review: “Unthinkable””

  1. I want more Katrina Law.

    The army thing was covered last time, I thought. The mayor/Argus were covering it up. Or something…

    My low-point was pretty much the last 20 seconds.

    All in all I thought it was a good episode and a great ending – they built it up really well with a LOT of downer episodes so I’m glad things picked up in the end and we got some good closure. Sure, some of the episode was fairly heavy-handed (the whole jacket thing for example) but other than that, all around goodness.

    • Yeah, ARGUS has some power, but an army marching on a major city? No chance that could be covered up.

      (I get why they aren’t there from a writing / dramatic point of view, but their absence should make more sense)

      • I assumed that ARGUS was intercepting/cutting off communications so nobody on the outside would have any idea what was going on, the Army included.

  2. Fairly strong finale overall. Interesting how they brought the LoA/LoS back into it (and sent away Sara at the same time).

    The ending was a bit odd. If Det. Lance was really in bad shape, you’d think they would have mentioned at in their discussion at the end. Perhaps they didn’t know, but given who they are that seems unlikely. Equally unlikely that both events were happening at the same time, given their mode of transportation and where they were…

    The soapy bits/drama were a bit heavy, but understandable. I had predicted what Oliver was doing but wasn’t 100% sure.

    All in all, it was a good season and they have a great start for next year. Perhaps Oliver will take over as Mayor. (Wasn’t he mayor in the comics at some point?). I’m sure somehow he’ll get the company back as well.

    • Lance’s injury looked like a ruptured spleen, which would be pretty consistent with how it presented.

  3. ARGGGGHHHH…

    The Felicity bit broke my heart!!!!!
    *cries*

    dammit.

    but.. guess I shoulda seen it coming….

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