ARROW Review 7.20 “Confessions”
This post contains spoilers for Arrow.
Check out our last review here.
“Confessions” has great news for anyone who might have been disappointed that Rene Ramirez’s days of ratting out Oliver Queen were over (even if it all was just a part of the plan). Same goes for anyone who was sad that we moved on from Roy Harper’s rage situation four years ago. Arrow’s a game of whodunit this week, and it’s not a good one. Though it tries to build up to a shocking payoff, all it really manages is to pull off is the the most exhausting episode of season seven.
Team Arrow dances around the SCPD’s prying questions to figure out who it was that slaughtered the subway security guards while the team was trying to stop a terrorist attack. Emiko and the Ninth Circle continue their quest to unleash a terrorist attack on Star City, resulting in the team calling in some backup: Arsenal.
I’m going to save you from reading something boring after watching something boring, so we’re not going to re-document the ins and outs of every confession. Here’s the thing about the “switcheroo” they pulled with Roy: we already saw him give into the blood lust earlier in the season. We knew then that it wasn’t the Mirakuru, because we have proof that someone who experienced it in large doses made it out just fine ages ago without experiencing any relapse. We knew that Roy and Thea were hunting down the Lazarus Pits, and we knew the symptoms of resurrection. The entirety of the episode’s buildup is based on a reveal that most folks had guessed when the wrath first surfaced the last time that we saw Roy in this season.
The “good” news is that now we know what causes them to go from vigilantes on the police force to vigilantes being public enemy number one. Emiko swiped the footage of Roy brutally murdering the innocent guards, which she then turns over to the SCPD. But not before she reveals to Oliver that she knew about the Queen’s Gambit and elected not to tell their father and drops a whole-ass building on the entirety of Team Arrow, sans Felicity.
Thankfully, Arrow has gotten to a point where a bad episode is just bad because they happen in twenty-three episode arcs, and not because they’re rehashing the same nonsense at every turn, or making some yikes-worthy choices. “Confessions” isn’t either of those things, it’s just your run-of-the-mill off episode. It doesn’t make it any better, but it’s still a testament to how far the show’s come under Schwartz and company.
I know it’s a short one this week, fam. I just don’t have anything nice to say about it, and I don’t want to harp on stuff we’ve already covered. Maybe you loved it! If you did, I want to hear why in the comments.
