Welcome to Last Night on TV, our daily column that looks back at what happened on television the night before. If we’re going to stay up all night and watch TV, we might as well talk about it the next day.
Last night on TV, Arrow blew right through an awesome League of Assassins Civil War to make a convoluted point about daddy issues.
Arrow
There are a number of things that the writers of Arrow love above all other things. Just as Oliver loves Felicity and his son, their love is strong for the following things: big late episode fake outs, big last minute twists, toying with the audience about a larger mystery and the beating home of a single theme. “Sins of the Father” ticks off all of these boxes.
The big late episode fake out is whether or not Oliver would go through with killing Malcolm Merlin. Of course he didn’t. This show would dearly miss the presence of dear, sweet John Barrowman. Throughout season four, Merlin has been reduced to background nuisance, showing up only when something bad happens to Thea. This episode pivots his larger narrative. With Merlin and Oliver on the outs, we get a darker path for the now one handed former Ra’s. For Barrowmaniacs, this will be a welcome change. He’s better when things go a little nutty.
The Malcolm/Oliver conflict sets up the episodes late twist, which brings Merlin and Damien Darhk together. If this brings further scenes in which Barrowman and Neal McDonough get to play off each other and match wits, it shouldn’t be a bad thing for anyone involved. Though it will be interesting to see just how far down the rabbit hole Malcolm is willing to go. Exacting revenge upon Oliver is one thing, but Darhk’s plans are far more dastardly and would involve destroying the city in which Malcolm’s Thea (whom he still loves, I guess) resides.
For a time late in this episode, I was almost convinced that we would see this season’s big Graveyard Mystery (that’s what I’m calling it, for lack of a more inspired nickname) resolved. If Hulu’s player showed the timecode on screen, I would have known better, as there was plenty of time left in the episode. But it doesn’t, so I became quickly convinced that Malcolm would let Thea die. Then I followed the show down the rabbit hole, almost convinced that Merlin would end up in the ground. Alas, I fell for the tricks of the Arrow Writers Room. They are a wily bunch and they don’t seem keen on laying out the answers to this particular mystery any time soon. It’s an impressive feat of restraint, considering how they are usually in such a hurry to get things done.
The final beloved element at play here is the firm drubbing of a theme. This is where “Sins of the Father” fails to elevate. In an episode that featured a huge moment — a League of Assassins civil war that ends with the League itself being both literally and metaphorically dissolved — the show also worked out a bunch of daddy issues. In trying to answer the eternal absentee father question (“Can people really change over time?”), they got their message convoluted. People don’t really change, we’re led to believe. Unless you’re Oliver Queen, I guess. Or Nyssa, the Queen of Crazytown. Perhaps the message is that only the children of absentee fathers are capable of change. The fathers themselves are too far gone. Then again, Oliver’s actions are putting William in the line of fire, so he won’t win any Father of the Year awards, either. Like Oliver, we’re all just trying to overcome the sins of our fathers, and we’re mostly failing.
It’s all the befuddling result of the show trying to drub the audience with thematic acrobatics. Sometimes it’s enough to just have a civil war breakout between assassins. For Arrow — for better or worse — it’s never that simple.
What did you watch last night?
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