How awesome was last night’s ARROW? Bar none, this was the best episode of the season so far.
I admit that I had no idea what to expect, because I had never watched CONSTANTINE before, so it was all new to me. All I knew going in was that somehow John Constantine was supposed to get Sara back and snap her out of her killer zombie mode. But I had no idea how entertaining that was going to be and how much fun John Constantine actually was.
“Haunted” starts out with Zombie!Sara killing people. She is crazy violent and seems to be targeting young women, who bare a striking resemblance to Thea Queen. I guess being as dead as she was makes the blood lust for the one who took her life that much stronger, and for the signs to appear almost immediately. So she is dead set on finding Thea and killing her once and for all, and let me tell you, Zombie!Sara is terrifying. When she does find Thea at Laurel’s apartment, I was on the edge of my seat, yelling at the TV for Thea to run for her life. Also, did you guys notice how crazy strong Sara was? That scene where she basically throws Thea around like she is a rag doll and then starts chasing her down the stairs was intense. Major kudos to Caity Lotz and Willa Holland because it was nerve wrecking and brilliant.
Because Sara has it in for Thea and starts a killing spree in Star City in her quest to find the youngest Queen, Laurel’s secret is quickly revealed. The look on Oliver’s face when he first saw Sara was great and so was the subsequent heart-to-heart he had with Felicity about losing loved ones and dealing with grief. That scene was so short, but showed so much as to how far they have come in their relationship – especially Oliver. For a guy who kept his emotions and feelings and thoughts to himself, no matter what the cost, the fact that he is so easily sharing that part of him with her is nothing short of amazing. She confides in him that she heard Ray’s final message and it seemed to me like she didn’t have enough time to process his death and grieve the loss of her friend. No matter what happened between them, I truly believe Felicity considered Ray to be a really good friend and having to deal with such opposite emotions during the hiatus – the absolute happiness of finally being with Oliver and building a life together and the loss of a dear friend – probably caused some pretty unresolved issues for her. Now that she knows that Ray is alive and in trouble, I wonder how that is going to affect her relationship with Oliver.
Oliver finds out that Laurel took her sister to Nanda Parbat and used the Lazarus Pit to bring her back. Obviously, he isn’t thrilled about it and confronts Laurel, asking why she didn’t go to him with this in the first place. Laurel kind of throws in his face that he did the same thing for his sister, so he doesn’t get to be all judgemental about it. When Sara attacks Thea and puts her in a hospital, things escalate quickly and the things Laurel says to Oliver then really gets to him and makes him rethink a lot of his actions.
This subplot was actually really great. It was a chance for them to rehash this weird relationship they have and find out where they stand with each other. Because they went from being together, to not being together, to losing Tommy, to Oliver hooking up with Sara and then Sara dying to Laurel becoming the Black Canary. Whew, that was exhausting and they never sat down and just freakin’ talked to each other. They just went from one crisis, to the next and the next and there were a lot of unresolved feelings and things going unsaid that needed to be let out and this episode was great because it gave them the chance to do just that. So thank you, TPTB. Character development at its best here.
Oliver enlists his buddy John Constantine’s help to save Sara’s soul. Turns out they met in Lian Yu and that was a flashback I was actually interested in. Great scenes both on the island and in Star City and I really, really enjoyed Matt Ryan’s performance. He was just so funny through the entire thing and I guess now it was explained what kind of mystical things Oliver was referring to when he said he has seen things back in the season 4 premiere. So Constantine helps them and guides Laurel and Oliver through a parallel realm or something in order to save Sara’s soul. They fight against some killer ninjas, who look a lot like the ones from the League of Assassins, and finally restore Sara’s soul into her body and everyone lived happily ever after.
Or not. Because, meanwhile, Damien Dahrk gives Lance an assignment and Oliver asks Dig to go with him as backup. Turns out the assignment was to connect a device to a computer in a federal facility and they soon find out that what they were actually doing was deleting military files. Dig soon catches his brother’s name and Lance goes back to Dahrk and casually asks him about Andrew Diggle. The villain is all too happy to say that Dig’s brother was actually involved with organized crime and that was what got him killed. Lance gives John his brother’s classified file and my heart broke for him at that moment. Poor Dig.
And last, but definitely not least, Felicity thinks that there was probably another message underneath Ray’s final words and asks Curtis to help her crack it. When they do break it, it turns out that it was Ray saying he is alive and he is in trouble. Oh, snap.
Bonus lines: “This is your overlord Felicity Smoak” – coming out of the P.A. system at the lair.
“Well, he is a very specific kind of yummy” – Thea Queen, talking about John Constantine.
So what did you think? Hit the comments below and tell me all about it, or come talk to me on Twitter.
Don’t miss the next new episode of ARROW on November 11 at 8/7c on The CW.