Arrow’s “Suicidal Tendencies” (S3,EP17) & Fighting Over Felicity

Once upon a time, Arrow was seemingly heading straight toward a Suicide Squad spin-off. However, Warner Bros.’ upcoming movie date with Will Smith’s Deadshot, Margot Robbie’s Harley Quinn, and Jared Leto’s Joker put an end to that. We are now left only dropping back in on the TV version of the Squad once or twice a season, usually as a good excuse for more of a Diggle-centric hour. However, “Suicidal Tendencies” wasn’t satisfied with simply sidelining everyone else to a bit of a B story while the Suicide Squad pulled focus. No, this was an ambitious episode, dropping us straight into Diggle and Lyla’s wedding (something many may have totally forgotten was even a storyline) and ending with another assassinated mayor, the third for Starling City in a little over a year and a half. On top of that, they even tried to do an American Soldier thing with Deadshot, actually giving him the flashbacks of the week, revealing that in his pre-crime life he was a PTSD-addled soldier with an increasingly terrified wife and daughter.

That was enough to deal with for one episode. As such, Thea showed up for a cameo at the wedding and then vanished, Malcolm was completely absent, Roy kind of just stood around in the background, and Laurel’s training with Nyssa was referenced but left off-screen. All of their drama can wait for another week. “Suicidal Tendencies” was about two things: Oliver and Ray fighting, Diggle and Lyla leading the increasingly sparse Suicide Squad into battle.

Pretending that Ray and Oliver’s Fight Wasn’t Completely About Felicity | Well, that was bound to happen eventually, right? As soon as Ray Palmer slept with Felicity and finished his Iron Man suit on the same night, we were headed for an Arrow vs. ATOM showdown. The writers were going to find an excuse to have Oliver and Ray literally fight each other, ostensibly about something else, but pretty much about Felicity. In “Suicidal Tendencies,” that “something else” was Ray attempting to bring the Arrow to justice due to his string of recent murders, and along the way he found out that Oliver was the Arrow. Who knew that the face guard on the ATOM suit actually had both x-ray and facial recognition software? That allowed Ray to peer through a building and pick up an image of Oliver in Arrow gear, and our avuncular billionaire quickly put almost everything together and realized Felicity hadn’t been totally honest with him. So, he turned on her pretty much instantly, ignoring her claims that Oliver had nothing to do with the recent murders. Felicity then running to explain everything to Oliver and Roy in the Arrow Cave was fairly hilarious, with Amell and Haynes giving her their best, “WTF are you talking about?” expressions. Oliver foolishly thought Felicity’s relationship with Ray was totally normal.  Nope, the girl’s clearly drawn to billionaire vigilantes.   That means Bruce Wayne is going to swoop in around season 6, and Felicity shall swoon uncontrollably.

It’s still odd that Ray keeps getting inserted into these law enforcement storylines, the eccentric billionaire kind of just randomly around to help the mayor when Brick threatens the Glades and now popping up on TV to announce that he’s throwing his full support behind the Starling City Police Department’s efforts to bring the Arrow to justice. It’s not odd that Ray would stick his nose into that kind of business given his vigilante-leanings and considerable financial weight, but when I try to think of a real world hypothetical example, like maybe Mark Zuckerberg showing up on TV to announce he was going to help track down some suspected serial killer, it just seems weird. But this is a comic book show. So, you know, just go with it.

The way Ray reacted to Felicity’s lies revealed a new side of him. He didn’t turn cruel or cold; instead, he was just really hurt. The guy’s wife was murdered in front of him, and the girl he chose to move on with turns out to have been keeping secrets from him the whole time and clearly has feelings for another guy. In response, he appeared to slip into a knee jerk businessman problem-solving mode, dismissing Felicity’s pleas because she’s a compromised asset, turning to the authorities to take care of things, and then trying to get the job done on his own. That led to the Arrow v Atom fight, which suggested that once Ray does actually master the specifics of controlling his super suit Oliver will be no match for him. Seriously, it was like watching Batman fight Iron Man, with Iron Man looking amused when Batman’s batarangs bounce off of him. However, it did also confirm Oliver’s claim that Ray is ultimately unstable, unwilling to listen to reason from either Felicity or Oliver, and rushing off to a battle which could have resulted in people dying. Ultimately, experience and levelheadedness won out, Oliver exploiting a somewhat conveniently located power source on the ATOM suit.

There is a potential Flash vs. Arrow aspect to the ATOM vs. Arrow conflict, both in the power disparity and dueling ideologies. That’s not how “Suicidal Tendencies” chose to play it, though. This was a conflict completely anchored in the Felicity, Oliver, Ray love triangle, with Oliver a somewhat unwilling participant at this point. This was perhaps the definition of the way superhero storytelling is married to relationship soap opera on the CW. It’s not entirely clear by the end if Oliver has abandoned his earlier claim that Ray is merely too new at all of this to understand that he can’t both get the girl and be the hero, but Felicity and Ray mending fences and re-pledging their partnership at the end was around as effective as anything with those two gets.

The Suicide Squad Rides Again | I am slightly disappointed we missed our chance to see what a full Arrow wedding episode looks like. They were done with Diggle and Lyla’s nuptials by the time the opening title card swooshed by. Did we even get to see Oliver’s best man speech? It would have been so remarkably short but sweet, with one or two patented Stephen Amell dramatic pauses. Oh, well.

If I’m honest, the business with Oliver, Ray and the League Assassins seemed so much more pressing that upon first watch I kind of missed what the Suicide Squad’s mission even was, although that became pretty self-explanatory when Lyla and Diggle argued over just rescuing one hostage instead of all of them. This particular iteration of the Squad was a bit sparse, making you wonder how on Earth Lyla, Deadshot, and Cupid would have pulled it off if Diggle hadn’t volunteered to tag along to protect his new wife. Cupid’s presence here was probably no more divisive than in her introductory episode earlier this season, but as someone who actually grew to like Amy Gumenick’s performance I welcomed her return, which basically turned her into Arrow’s version of Harley Quinn, particularly the way she transitioned from blind devotion to one man (Arrow) to another (Deadshot). Harley and Deadshot were an item in the New 52 Suicide Squad, and it often played much as Cupid and Deadshot did here, which is mostly him rolling that one eye he has at every crazy thing she says.

I was thrown by Deadshot getting his own flashbacks, even though Malcolm similarly got a flashback episode this season. Similar to the Malcolm flashbacks, seeing Deadshot recruited by HIVE to kill Diggle’s brother felt like something we already knew about. However, it worked because it was the pay-off of a series of American Sniper flashbacks revealing Deadshot’s PTSD.  It granted him an actual redemptive arc, wiith his apparent self-sacrifice at episode’s end ensuring Diggle and Lyla a chance at a life he could have had with his own wife and daughter but was too messed up to handle. Of course, I don’t believe for one second that Deadshot is actually dead, but it was an effective moment.

While all of this entertaining, because who’s not going to love a gun-toting, slightly mad US Senator staging his own capture for p.r. points, it didn’t feel completely connected to the rest of the episode. Diggle and Lyla openly wondering what in the world they were thinking going on the mission together and risking orphaning their daughter, thus connecting Diggle and Oliver as brothers in the midst of an identity crisis, helped to make it feel a little more relevant.   The resolution to Diggle and Lyla’s dilemma was not really in doubt because who’s going to be the one to really quit their job and raise their daughter, the full-time character or the one we almost never see? So, while it was noble for Diggle to announce his attentions to quit Team Arrow you could sense it wouldn’t stick. I did, however, briefly entertain the idea maybe they were removing Diggle from the Team for a couple of episodes, but Oliver’s going to need his help now that the entire city will be on an Arrow manhunt after the mayor’s assassination.

THE BOTTOM LINE

While it was nice saying hello and then goodbye to Deadshot again, this felt like another Arrow episode where its two halves were not built equally, a somewhat thrown-together Suicide Squad plot not quite matching up to the far more imperative business of Oliver, Felicity, and Ray, a storyline we’ve been building up all season. As a result, I don’t know how well “Suicidal Tendencies” actually worked as a full episode, but it was certainly an enjoyable one.

THE NOTES

1. Spin-off Pitch: A family drama about Diggle and Lyla struggling to balance their parental responsibilities with their respective workloads, Lyla having become DC’s equivalent of an Agent of SHIELD since the events of this episode. The twist? Deadshot faked his death, and now works for them as a manny for Sara.

2. Oliver totally left Roy behind at the end, didn’t he? That’s after Roy appeared to have been electrocuted by something shot out of the ATOM suit. It’s entirely possible that Roy died right then and there. We never see him again the rest of the episode. Oliver never goes over to check on him.

3. It must have been a nightmare to choreograph that 3-on-1 battle with Oliver as Arrow against the League of Assassins people dressed up exactly like him.

4. Ray’s an ordained minister? Of course he is.

5. Felicity caught the bouqet at the wedding? Of course she did.

6. Why wasn’t Quentin Lance, the Chief of Police, there at the police station when Ray tried to give his statement about Oliver being the Arrow?

7. I want somebody to make a YouTube “In Memoriam” video for Starling City’s three dead mayors (Sebastian Blood and the others whose names I never really caught) and one dead mayoral candidate (Moira Queen), set to a Sarah McLachlan song.

8. I thought Deadshot had been freed in last year’s season finale, but upon Netflix re-watch I see the episode never actually explains what became of him or the rest of the Squad after their stand-off with Waller.

9. Missed opportunity for a quick joke: Diggle should have briefly told Oliver at the end that he’d run into Cupid on his mission, giving us a chance for a potentially funny facial reaction or some kind of exchange like “How is she?”/”In love with Deadshot now” leading to Oliver realizing that even his stalker has moved on from him.

10. I am fairly certain Felicity was completely wrong in asserting that Oliver hadn’t killed anyone in nearly 2 years, although Ray’s response about that not being the greatest defense in the world was perfect.

11. By this point anytime Oliver and Felicity again revisit the topic of why he can’t be with her maybe he can just say, “Felicity, we’ve covered all of this already.”

NEXT TIME

SECOND OPINIONS

AVClub – “Much like the Flash, Ray Palmer’s Atom is now positioned as a more idealistic alternative to this universe’s original hero, yet it’s Oliver who does so much of the inspiring and teaching. Sooner or later, he’s going to learn his own lesson. Maybe then the transformation from the Hood to Green Arrow will be complete.”

Collider – “It simply feels as if the Arrow writers are spinning their wheels on the same relationship storylines over and over again, to the point that I’m not sure there will ever be any resolution as long as one half of a couple is still breathing.

For a straight-forward plot recap, try TVLine.