I first became aware of Arrow's existence through a little blurb in Entertainment Weekly's Fall TV Preview edition in 2012. There was a picture of a shirtless Stephen Amell and a paragraph with quotes from the producers which more or less boiled down to: "Please give us a chance. We're going to be a lot better than Smallville, we swear." I couldn't believe how good Amell's body looked, especially since he's just a year older than flabby ole me. More importantly, I couldn't believe the CW was seriously going to the DC well again and with a character we'd already seen played by Justin Hartley for half a decade on the aggressively mediocre Smallville, which had been mercifully put out of its misery just a year prior. "Arrow? I give it 1 season, 2 tops," I thought.
Funny story about that: I was wrong. So, so wrong.
Arrow has now reached 100 episodes, with lucky #100 being "Invasion!", the second part of the big "Heroes Vs Aliens" crossover event. Moreover, Arrow, the show once buried in a tiny little blurb in EW, recently graced the cover of EW (alongside Flash and Supergirl) in a big story hyping up "Invasion!". The producers - Marc Guggenheim, Andrew Kreisberg & Greg Berlanti - who were once reduced to flat out begging us to give them a chance in a post- Smallville world are now running victory laps around the internet, receiving backslapping congratulations tweets from everyone and giving multiple interviews to press outlets looking both back at what they've accomplished and ahead to what's next for Team Arrow. Guggenheim even inadvertently reignited the Olicity wars.
Stephen Amell, as is his way, took to Facebook to celebrate the occasion, writing:
The fans, from all over world, young and old... whether you discovered Green Arrow in the 1940's or you discovered the show somewhere between October 10, 2012 and tonight, thank you. This experience has fundamentally altered the lives of more people than you can possibly imagine. What a ride. And as the caretaker of such a beloved character and the representative of such a rich history, I have always tried my very best to keep you entertained. I will continue to do so.
However, of the 100 episodes how many would say are actually any good? Perhaps it's easier to think of it in terms of seasons instead of individual episodes, in which case it's generally argued the first and second seasons were good, third season not so much, fourth season downright bad and fifth season surprisingly great so far, if anyone's actually watching anymore. So, while Arrow has clearly proved everyone wrong since the time it was simply that weird show no one particularly asked for starring some guy no one had ever heard of it's also taken several regrettable detours along the way.
So, it hasn't exactly been smooth sailing getting to #100, and coming into tonight there was every reason to believe the show was again setting itself up for another disappointment. After all, the key to season 5's creative rebound has been a return to the show's gritty, street-level roots, yet here's episode #100 falling in-between a ratings stunt crossover with Supergirl, Flash and Legends of Tomorrow in which the makeshift Justice League headed up by Barry and Oliver must fight off invading aliens. That's all fine and good for Supergirl, Flash and the Waverider crew, but not so great in terms of a back to basics season for Arrow. Surely this storyline would no better fit Arrow than all that business with the hawk people and reincarnation last season.
Again, funny story about that: Arrow somehow managed to (mostly) seamlessly roll with the punches with this alien invasion storyline, and turned in one of the strongest episodes in the show's entire run. As Thomas Drufke put it on Twitter:
Nostalgic, heart breaking, and meticulously crafted #Arrow100 was just about as clever as Arrow can get. IT WAS AWESOME.
- Thomas Drufke (@TDRUFtheFilmBUF) December 1, 2016
"About as clever as Arrow can get" says it perfectly because compared to other, more ambitious examples of genre television "Invasion!" likely registered as a fairly standard and predictable "It's a Wonderful Life"/ Matrix riff with a somewhat awkward secondary storyline involving the rest of Team Arrow (primarily Wild Dog) teaming with Supergirl and an oddly disinterested Flash to fight some cyber girl to steal some piece of technology to help them better understand the aliens. Wild Dog was given an out of nowhere but oddly sensible distrust of metahumans, seemingly just so that there could be some kind of story arc going on in this half of the episode (surprise, surprise: by the end, he changes his mind, and is totally cool with Flash and Supergirl). Curtis and Ragman...um....um....well, Curtis cracked some good jokes, and Ragman's religious background helped out when deciphering alien code. Good for them.
But Arrow isn't Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel, Doctor Who, Lost, Fringe, 12 Monkeys, The X-Files, Supernatural, Daredevil or even Agents of SHIELD. Unlike those shows and others like them, stylistic and formal experimentations on Arrow rarely extend beyond "this week, the flashbacks are for someone other than Oliver" or "this week, the entire episode will take place in flashbacks." As such, the mere fact that Arrow took this occasion to experiment with a Matrix-inspired storyline involving Oliver and pals being stuck in a fantasy world in which the Queen's Gambit never sank qualifies as downright groundbreaking, even if it's the type of thing we've seen countless times before on other shows.
Of course, if Guggenheim had had his way there would have been flashbacks, telling TVLine, "I actually took an idea that I had for the 100th episode and moved it to the 101st, and that is 'flashbacks to Season 1,'" as a new clue surfaces linking the villain Prometheus to Oliver's past. That was something that I wanted to do for the 100th episode, but there just wasn't any room to tell a flashback story."
It works better this way, freeing up room for everyone to have at least one emotional moment with the people they really need to (Sara with Laurel, Thea with Moira, Oliver with Laurel, his parents and even Quentin) before being paired off with their most pressing enemy (Oliver with Deathstroke, Thea with Malcolm, Sara with Damien). It resulted in one of the single coolest moments in the long history of Arrow fight scenes:
Poor Diggle and Ray weren't granted nearly as much (if any) emotional heavy-lifting, but their presence was still appreciated, particularly when Diggle was busting out his Christian Bale Batman voice as The Hood. In fact, that nod to the show's beginnings with The Hood was but one of many countless easter eggs, including the meta reference to Tommy being a doctor in Chicago (if you didn't know, the actor who played him is on Chicago Med now).
Coming into the episode, one of the biggest selling points (beyond aliens and #100 and so many guest stars) was the return of Katie Cassidy as a fantasy version of Laurel engaged to Oliver, thus getting to at least briefly live out the future so many had assumed Arrow was heading for back when Oliver and Laurel seemed like the show's end game. If you've been watching Legends this season you also know Sara's primary arc has been to come to terms with her sister's death and her inability to change things despite having her own time machine (wibbly wobbly, timey wimey and all that). As such, Laurel's return in this episode was important not just for Oliver but also for Sara. For her part, Cassidy was certainly a radiant sight for sore eyes, but she was also stuck playing a fantasy version of Laurel, not the real Laurel. As such, she was simply there to help bring about catharsis for others.
And, sure. This all paid off as expected. Laurel's presence certainly tugged at heart strings while perhaps making the Oliver-Felicity fans nervous (it's been a long, long time since Oliver has looked at anyone other than Felicity the way he looked at Laurel in "Invasion!"). A quick scan of Twitter during the episode indicated that, indeed, the shipper wars were raging again, fans on either side of the divide pointing to key moments (e.g., Oliver recognizing Felicity and having a quick flash of their romance run through his mind, that heartfelt goodbye speech he delivered to Laurel while proclaiming his undying love for her) in the episode as supporting their side.
All of that misses the most important part, though. "Invasion!" is not the episode where Oliver reached some conclusion about his affection for Laurel or Felicity but instead the moment the show recommitted itself to the reality that Thea is the only true family Oliver has left anymore. Voluntarily removed from Team Arrow life, Thea has not been nearly as integral to the show this season, often relegated to Mayor's Office duty with Quentin. This has served the show well and regrounded her as a character, but it also means she's easier to lose track of now. "Invasion!" thus sucker punched us when it offered her and Oliver the heartbreaking moment when she resisted the orders to fight and simply wanted to continue living on in the world where her parents were still alive and life was so much better.
Thea understandably argued what use does the world have for people like them when people like Barry and Kara are out there being genuine superheroes? What good are they in a fight against aliens? After all, they're just normal people with a thing for archery, and they've already paid too high a price. When do the normal heroes get to stop? What is their reward?
But Oliver, the man who only started this to fulfill his father's dying wish, barked back that they do what they do because it's right, not because of some reward. That is superhero psychology 101, i.e., with great power (or in this case ability) must also come great responsibility. In this case, though, it also made for a great episode.
Nitpicks:1. Where was Artemis?
2. So, why was the cyber woman doing what she was doing?
3. "Lucky for you I'm not a trained assassin" followed by a quick reprise of the League of Assassins score was all kinds of awkward. Way too on-the-nose.
4. Some of those holograms at the end looked pretty wobbly, especially Tommy and Roy.
5. Not a nitpick, but demands to be said: Sara stepping into the middle of Diggle and Oliver's fight with Deadshoot and so instantly kicking his ass was so, so cool.
