Arrow - 'The Climb', 'Left Behind', Midnight City', 'Uprising', 'Canaries', 'The Return' and 'Nanda Parbat'

I'm weirdly fixated on the Simon Cowellness of Ra's al Ghul's high-
waisted pants.

We really excelled ourselves this week in Arrow catchup, so I'm not even going to attempt my usual level of detail.

'The Climb' is the mid-season finale. Ra's al Ghul delivers an ultimatum - deliver Sara's killer in 48 hours or the League will start slaughtering innocents in Starling City. Unfortunately, this coincides with Oliver learning that the killer was his sister, acting under the influence of a drug administered by Malcolm Merlin, who really, really sucks as a father. The purpose of this was to push Oliver into confessing to the killing and challenging Ra's to trial by combat on a sacred mountain less than a day's travel from Starling City. The idea is that when he kills Ra's all blood debts are erased and Merlin (or is it Merlyn? I'm never quite sure) will be free and clear. Unfortunately, Oliver gets run through and kicked off a mountain.

"What do we call the show now?"

Fortunately, one of the League members is Oliver's ARGUS partner from Hong Kong, Masaeo, who calls his estranged wife Tatsu to 'bring him back to life'. This goes with the flashbacks, in which Oliver protects Masaeo and Tatsu and their son Akio while they pursue Chen Na Wen and a stolen supervirus that could be used to wipe out a city, but references to an event which led to the breakup of the couple suggests bad things may happen yet.

Brock attempts the patented Mirakuru throat-lift.

In 'Left Behind', we follow mostly Team Arrow, considering whether to go on without Oliver, which they eventually decide to do, and Malcolm Merlin's negativity be damned. This involves them deciding to stay the course against ruthless, bullet-proof and inexplicably London gangster Brick, played by Vinnie 'No Accents' Jones*, across three episodes ('Left Behind', 'Midnight City' and 'Uprising'.) Brick begins by stealing evidence files so that the criminals put away with the help of the Arrow over the last eight months have to be released, then takes over the Glades by kidnapping city Aldermen and threatening Councillors until the Mayor declares the district off-limits to police.

Set a mob to catch the Mob, I guess.

Elsewhere, Felicity learns that Ray is seeking to become, well, Iron Man, using miniaturised versions of QC Applied Sciences' military equipment built into a suit of high-tech armour called ATOM - Advanced Technology Operating Mechanism** - and that his motivation is the throat-lift murder of his fiance, Anna, during the Mirakuru siege. His inability to do much to protect either the city or Felicity from Brick kicks him into obsessive overdrive on this project, but despite Felicity's concern, it is his insistence that he is not doing this for revenge, but to protect those he cares about that prompts her to get the band back together after their collective long night of the soul and rally the largely honest and by now deeply, deeply pissed off citizens of the Glades (including Sin and Ted Grant) to take on Brick's gang in 'Uprising'.

'Uprising' also gives us some of Malcolm Merlin's backstory, and reveals that it was actually Brick who killed his wife and thus precipitated the Undertaking. In the end, it is Merlin who takes Brick down, but Oliver returns in time to demand he be handed over to the authorities.

This leads us into the shenanigans of 'The Return' and 'Nanda Parbat'. Thea refuses to go on the run with Malcolm, even after her cute DJ boyfriend tries to murder her for Ra's al Ghul***. Oliver comes clean about being the Arrow and she takes it really well; much better than learning that her dad hid this from her when he was telling her her friends and family were unreliable asshats. Reluctantly, and against the collective wisdom of Team Arrow, they agree to train with Merlin to learn to take down Ra's al Ghul, because after all this time they still buy the whole 'you must become him to beat him' schtick that they discredited at the end of last season. Speaking of Deathstroke, Merlin sends the Queens back to Lian Yu for some survival bonding, then breaks into the ARGUS black site and lets Slade Wilson out of his cage in an attempt to force one or both of them to embrace their killer instincts.

Another 100% successful rescue.

Thea is pretty steamed about this, and more so when she learns that the reason he wants to run and Oliver is willing to work with him is that she's on the hook for Sara's murder, having physically done the deed. Thus, while Laurel tries to take on Merlin solo (because where revenge is concerned, she is deeply stupid) Thea shops him to the League, because apparently they're in the bloody phone book****. This provokes Olly to try to rescue Merlin, partly because he knows it will eventually eat away at Thea that she sent her dad to die, be he ever such an arse, and partly because he's struggling with the knowledge of how utterly he got owned.

He and Diggle get captured, but in a jack move, Ra's al Ghul asks Oliver to take his place at the head of the League. Eventually they're just going to give up pretending they're not making a Batman series and start calling Olly the Dark Knight.

Nanda Parbat - Basically Petra with a dome on top.

My big problem with this whole arc is not that it's rehashing the discredited 'you can only defeat your opponent by fighting as he does' concept from last season, but that Oliver is putting up so little resistance to the idea. Yes, Olly has basically trained to bring a bow to a swordfight, but you know who that favours? The guy with the bow; especially if, as is the case with Oliver's magically expanding bow (seriously, it disappears into his hand when collapsed now,) it can block a sword and clock a dude in the face with no loss of effectiveness.

Anyway; we've got about seven or eight episodes left to go, and then we'll be watching Season 4, possibly even as it is aired.

* Interesting, if slightly disappointing, sidenote - Wikipedia includes Brick on a list of black supervillains.
** In another nod to other things in the comics, the QC name for it was OMAC.
*** I get that the League are big on cover, but how much call is there for slammin' DJs in Nanda Parbat? I mean, slightly more since Merlin shot this one, I guess...
**** In fairness, her mum could just have had a note in her contacts list.