Meanwhile, Slade gets into his Deathstroke gear and frees a bunch of prisoners who were being transferred out of Iron Heights prison (see, I knew there was a reason Diggle was on CNN!). I have to give a much deserved shoutout to the costume designers here, who did a fantastic job at adapting Deathstroke’s costume. When they teased Deathstroke’s mask on the island flashbacks last season, I was a bit worried because it looked yellow and cheap. This is perfectly adapted from the page though, and works remarkably well in live action. So far we’ve only really seen him standing around and pointing guns at people (though that sword throw into a guard’s chest was a nice touch), but I’m excited to see the costume in action when Deathstroke and The Arrow finally get into fisticuffs.
Slade plans to use Queen Consolidated’s applied sciences division (under Isabel’s direction) to give the prisoners Mirakuru and create an army. Blood is upset about Moira getting a bump in the polls because of Thea’s abduction, but it’s clear that he’s just a pawn in Slade’s game.
By the end of the episode, Oliver is filled with self doubt, especially after Roy drives off and leaves Starling City behind. Don’t worry, he’ll be back. Meanwhile, Slade pays a visit to Laurel, and gives tells her that Oliver is the Arrow, before he turns around and walks out of there like the badass he is. I half expected a mic drop.
Oh, and there were island flashbacks, too. But really, I don’t know what they were doing here. They didn’t move much of the island plot along and felt more like padding than anything else. With so much great stuff going on in the current timeline, it was distracting to keep jumping back to the island for brief and seemingly useless bits of time.
All in all, “Deathstroke” was one of the best episodes of the series so far, and was a lot better than I expected it to be. Too often shows tease the final showdown between two rivals and give us something that doesn’t quite meet our expectations. With a handful of episodes left to go before we finally get to that showdown, I’m confident that we’re in for one hell of a ride. Now I just hope they stick the landing so that all of this build up wasn’t for nothing.
Unfortunately Arrow won’t be back next week, and instead airs on the 16th. Until then. we’ll just have to re-watch this one a few times more. Which honestly isn’t a bad idea…