Arrow gave us what felt like an episode inside an episode. Not only did we get to see part three of the four part crossover, but we also got to see wonderful moments for Arrow’s 100th episode. When we left our superheroes, Oliver, Ray, Sara, Diggle and Thea were taken by the aliens. Cisco vibes to see them in stasis in some sort of alien ship.
Oliver wakes up and is back at home in the Queen mansion. He’s engaged to Laurel and preparing for their imminent wedding. As they often do, the dream feels very real, until Oliver gets flashes of his true life. It isn’t until Sara comes to town for the wedding that we see that all of the heroes are in the same dream state together. Sara isn’t an assassin. Ray is still a technical genius and engaged to Felicity, but he isn’t the Atom. Diggle is the new Green Arrow in Star City. Thea is happy with her family back together again, but they all know that this isn’t real.
Thea was the only one who wanted to stay in the dream world. She had her family back; she wasn’t a trained fighter. She was just a sister, a daughter. She thought that this life was real enough for her. But, eventually she comes around, and the team looks for a way out of stasis. The only thing that seems out of place in this dream state is the Smoak technologies building. The problem is when they realize that they are real but the dreams are not, more things are thrown at them. Cue some old villains, Deathstroke, Damien Darhk, and Malcolm Merlyn.
I really enjoyed the dream state. I applaud the Arrow writers and showrunners for throwing it back to the pilot and giving us a great 100th episode. We got to have Moira and Robert Queen come back, which made it just as difficult for Thea and Oliver to let them go again. Most importantly, we got Dinah Laurel Lance back even if it was only in this dream state. Laurel’s portrayal of The Black Canary has always been strong. If there’s a way to get her back on the show for good, I’d love to have her back.
Meanwhile, the rest of the Arrow team along with Supergirl and The Flash search for a way to find their friends. Felicity and Curtis hope to use a piece of the alien technology to locate them, but they need another piece of tech to help complete their locator. Wild Dog has a problem working with people who have superpowers. He believes that powers are evil, and he doesn’t want anything to do with The Flash or Supergirl. Leave it to them to win him over in the end.
Once they got out of the dream state, Oliver, Thea, Sara, Ray, and Diggle find themselves in the alien spaceship… in space. Now what? They fight their way out of the Dominator’s spaceship and into an escape pod. I sure hope someone knows how to fly this thing. It turns out no one has any idea how to fly a spaceship, but have no fear. The waverider comes to their rescue.
One thing notably missing from these episodes is one of the newest recruits, Artemis. During the last episode, we saw that Evelyn has been working with Prometheus. But, the Arrow team still doesn’t know of her betrayal, so it was interesting that she was not involved whatsoever. I do wish they had some sort of explanation for her absence.
