Arrow: Three Ghosts

So should I start with the angry rant or finish with it? Okay, I'll save it for the end.

Things picks up right where they left off, with Oliver dying on the table and Felicity/Diggle begging Barry to save his life. I've no idea why or how a forensic scientist knows to inject rat poison into Oliver to thin his blood, but – whatever. You don't care; I don't care.

All that matters is that a few minutes later Oliver is back up on his feet and yelling at Felicity for having the audacity to save his life by divulging his secret to Barry. I'm not entirely sure what this is meant to achieve (a requisite dick move from Oliver?), especially since dozens of people are in on the secret at this stage, but I like that Barry stands up to him in Felicity's defence. That – along with how helpful and courteous he is – demonstrates the forthcoming tonal difference between Arrow and The Flash. One is about gung-ho vengeance and redemption, the other about helping people after being bestowed with an accidental gift.

But it turns out there may be side-effects to the poison in Oliver's system, as he soon begins to have hallucinations of Shado and Slade. This is the first time we've seen either of them in the present-day, and (regardless of whether or not they're a side-effect of the serum) their ghostly presence opens up the question of: are they still alive? And if not: what happened to them?

Shado says to Oliver: "stop fighting and live or everyone you love will die," which is exactly the sort of thing superheroes are told when it comes down to balancing family life with The Mission, but given what we learn about Slade's plans in the final few seconds of the episode, it would appear Shado is trying to deliver a legitimate warning (as opposed to a vague ultimatum).

Things get murkier when Slade turns up. He breaks Oliver's arrow, he trashes the Arrow Cave – so is he real or not? When Barry delivers the verdict that all the poison is out of Ollie's system, it leaves behind the gaping question of what exactly is going on with all these visitations. I suppose one option is that they're really ghosts – except that Slade is still alive. So perhaps the real Slade paid Ollie a real visit just to freak him out – except that doesn't account for his missing eye-patch. Plus, that would have been an amazingly stupid plan.

Oliver eventually returns home, only to learn that Thea is holed up in her room. It's only on entering that he realizes:

Oh shit, I totally forgot that I shot this guy!

That minor humour aside, what I loved most about this scene was that Oliver clearly didn't recognise Sin. What I've always liked most about the Roy/Thea subplot is that it self-sufficiently chugs along at its own pace, more or less unconnected from whatever Oliver's up to. By now Sin is an established and likeable character, has ties to Sara and Roy/Thea, but has never interacted with Oliver before. In other words, not EVERYTHING in this show revolves around him.

In keeping with this theme, I also think this is the first time Diggle has interacted with Roy (though it occurs off-screen) and a nice touch was Thea and Sin going to Laurel for help in regards to the blood drive.

So Oliver and Diggle track down Cyrus Gold (name-dropping Solomon Grundy along the way; memories of Justice League tells me this means something, but I've no idea what) and Dig barely escapes with his life.

Addled by the serum, Arrow hands the problem over to Quentin, telling him where the cops can find Gold, and you just know this'll end in tears. Lucas was a dead man the moment he mentioned his wife.

Unfortunately, the deaths of all those cops was not as affecting as it could have been since they were just cannon fodder, and I thought the scene in which Laurel breaks the news of the slaughter to her father was far more affecting. (As an aside, can we all agree that Katie Cassidy's strongest scenes are those opposite her father?)

The most important thing to come out of this is that Laurel has started to suspect Sebastian, which means that for the first time ever, she's one step ahead of Oliver. Good show, keep this up.

Roy ends up breaking into an office block to steal Max's file (nice detail on him still having a limp) only to get captured and injected with the serum, courtesy of Sebastian in his Scarecrow mask. Oliver's attempts to rescue him are stymied by Cyrus Gold's immense strength, but in a totally unexpected twist (and I really didn't see it coming) Tommy takes advantage of this episode's limited-time-only "come back from the dead" offer, and gives Oliver the pep-talk he needs. The bad guys are even nice enough to let him finish it before attacking Oliver again.

Cyrus ends up with a melted face (I'm sure we'll be seeing him again) and Oliver manages to escape with Roy, who is one of the lucky few to survive the mirakuru effects. But we're saving the consequences of this for another episode, for the show decides to wrap things up on Barry.

Watching him geeking out about Oliver's choice of a green outfit was cute, and he ends up being the one to supply the Arrow mask which is cool (and more sensible choice than the greasepaint Ollie presumably had to keep wiping off and on), but the whole thing ended on a slightly detached note when it cut to Central City and concluded with Barry's transformation into the Flash.

As it happens, I first saw all this in The Flash's premiere, where it worked nicely amongst all the other establishing scenes that introduced Barry's career, relationships and personality. At the time, I had no idea who he was talking to during that phone conversation, so it was a fun little connection to see it was Felicity.

But that doesn't change the fact that as the scene exists on Arrow, it's a little wonky – simply because it has absolutely nothing to do with anything else that happened in this episode. Barry's introduction here in preparation for his spin-off worked better than expected, but taking it all the way up to the genesis of his superpowers felt a bit pre-emptive. On the other hand, a) it's not like the vast majority of the audience wouldn't have known exactly what the lightning strike was all about, and b) were already anticipating the spin-off.

So all things considered, the integration of Barry Allen into this franchise was a success.

But now we get to my Big Fat Beef with this episode – and in fact, the entire show. Shado's fate.

I enjoy watching Arrow – I wouldn't be devoting time and energy to these reviews if I didn't, but what happens to Shado in this episode is infuriating to the point of offensive.

Now, I'm not adverse to female characters dying. To exempt women from pain, suffering and death in fictional stories is – obviously – ridiculous. But at this stage, writers should be (NEED to be) aware that there is a big difference in the way we treat character deaths, especially when it pertains to women, gay people and people of colour. There's a reason Black Guy Dies First, Bury Your Gays and Disposable Women are tropes – because there are patterns in the way these types of characters are killed off that are fundamentally different from the way straight white guys die.

What happens to Shado is a classic example of Fridging of a female character. It's also the most illogical and blatantly in service of a male character's arc and man-pain I've seen since Marian's stabbing in the BBC's Robin Hood.

As you know already, Shado dies after she and Sara are forced to their knees in front of Professor Ivo, who then demands that Oliver chose which one lives and which one dies. He aims his gun at Sara, Oliver instinctively throws himself in front of her, and Ivo subsequently shoots Shado.

Okay. My first problem is: why on earth would Professor Ivo craft this scenario for Oliver? He doesn't even KNOW Oliver. He had no personal animosity toward him, so why put him through such a personal and sadistic choice? What was he trying to gain from it?

Furthermore, there's been nothing about Ivo to indicate that he was capable of shooting an innocent girl in cold blood. Is he ruthless and driven? Sure. Has he killed before? Yes. But not like this – not so randomly and unnecessarily.

As everyone points out to him, he's got what he wanted when he left the submarine with the serum. And won't he need people to inject it with? If nothing else, Shado would have been a valuable subject to experiment on.

Of course, the reason behind all of this is a Doylist one. The writers needed a way of motivating Slade toward villainy and to make Oliver culpable in her death so that Slade would have a reason to turn on him as well. But unless something else occurs between this episode and the season finale, the latter is frankly absurd. How on earth could Slade hold Oliver responsible for Shado's death under these circumstances?

And as I said last week, I don't think they've done a very good job of establishing Slade's feelings for Shado, which means that I won't feel particularly convinced by Slade's impending Roaring Rampage of Revenge.

And most damning of all, it means that everything about the core plotline of this season; everything to do with Sebastian's campaign, and the army of soldiers, and Roy's impending super-strength – can be traced back to a dead woman. Which is a definitive example of a Disposable Woman.

Look – even if you're sitting there thinking that you don't care that much about the inherent sexism of the development, or about Shado as a character in her own right – consider this: killing off women to motivate men is LAZY WRITING. It's the most tired and boring and predicable trope EVER. There was a myriad of ways in which they could have built Slade into this season's Big Bad and they took the easy, dull, predictable route.

*deep breath*

Okay, so Slade's reveal in contemporary Starling City wasn't much of a surprise, as we hear him speaking long before the camera pans around to his face (and there's no disguising Manu Bennett's voice) and we learn than not only is Sebastian just a pawn, but the bid to kill the Mayor was down to him (I'd honestly forgotten about that!)

We're then treated to a montage which admittedly is pretty cool. To the sound of Slade's narration: "I am going to tear everything he cares about away from him, destroy those who chose to follow him, corrupt those he loves..." we see images of Quentin, Roy and Felicity – which tells me they're going to play a big part in the finale (as opposed to Diggle and Laurel, who were conspicuously absent).

In short, I'm looking forward to where this storyline is headed – I'm just really, really disappointment that it was built on something as contrived, unimaginative and sexist as the death of Shado.

Miscellaneous Observations:

There were a few more little hints as to Barry's impending story: Harrison Welles was namedropped, that damn particle accelerator is mentioned again (hopefully for the last time), and he gets the line: "I have experience with liking someone who doesn't like you the same way."

It was an effective, and rather chilling, scene when Slade woke up to find himself all alone in the submarine – as well as his realization that he now has super-strength.

That Sara covers for Ollie in regards to what really happened when Shado died makes me suspect that her second "death" was down to Slade (keeping in mind that Oliver thought she was dead by the time he leaves the island). Because hey, why not blame her as well?

But perhaps this episode's best moment – and I do mean moment – was when Oliver addresses Roy as "kid". Not since Willow's "bored now" on Buffy the Vampire Slayer has the repetition of a phrase been filled with so much foreshadowing, irony, and dramatic weight.