Arrow followed up the big twist from last month by making Oliver face the question: is being the Arrow enough? Could he do more as Ra’s al Ghul? To answer this, we got a retread of Oliver having an existential vigilante crisis.
Murmur hit the streets this week out for cop blood, which meant Captain Lance was a bit more central to the story with his disputes with our resident non-sidekick vigilantes. The loss of police support was what was really at the center of Oliver’s crisis this week, and leave it to the cop killer to remind Oliver that it isn’t about the thank you.
Meanwhile in the flashbacks, Oliver is with the little Yamashiro as he runs into none other than Shado.
Positives
Thea and Roy are back together! Nyssa is going to train Laurel! Their relationship is really weird! There were several interesting character moments in this episode. Those were some of the big ones, but we got some others. Thankfully enough, Felicity and Oliver actually had some decent scenes this week, especially the ones that weren’t centered around the why of the crusade.
We had some more interesting pieces moving in this episode. Laurel is going to get some serious training (though I could do without the sheer volume of characters who have been trained by the League). Now, the city is going to be against the Arrow after Ra’s impersonated him. And it was good that Ra’s did it. Had he sent any other assassin we really would not have fully understood what was going on. I love that he is attacking the Arrow identity, rather than the Arrow himself.
Negatives
We still didn’t have much happening this week. All Murmur amounted to was a shootout at the end that didn’t do much more than resolve this retread of why they fight. He had nothing interesting about him except for wondering how he even eats.
How did Nyssa know to show up at the police station? And how did she get there so fast?
The Verdict
“The Offer” was uneven as far as recent Arrow episodes go. We’ve done a great deal of set-up for the final conflict, but something needs to pay off soon.
