Arrow - 'The Offer', 'Suicidal Tendencies', 'Public Enemy', 'Broken Arrow', 'The Fallen' and 'Al Sa'him'

Bit of a change of pace, I know.

Okay, so... It's been a while, and we've watched a lot of Arrow, so I'm just going to kinda flit through an eventful run of episodes because I can't entirely remember how it all lines up.

Oliver rejects Ra's al Ghul's invitation to become his heir, but it turns out that asking was a kind of courtesy and Ra's sets about destroying the Arrow. Assassins in Arrow costumes start dropping perps across Starling City, which together with the increasing obviousness of Felicity's ongoing feelings for Oliver precipitates a showdown between Oliver and Ray in which ATOM gets its ass kicked. On the upside, Ray is convinced that the Arrow is okay when he isn't murdered, and later teams up with Oliver for some hero lessons and in order to save Felicity during the takedown of Deathbolt (the guy I didn't recognise from the 'Rogue Air' episode of The Flash), a metahuman who isn't linked to Central City and the particle accelerator accident.

Felicity ultimately, with a push from Ray, chooses Oliver, because if polyamory were an option the season would run about 30% shorter.

"The telephone is so impersonal. I prefer the hands on touch you only get with
hired goons."

Oliver is unmasked as the Arrow thanks to a tip from Ra's al Ghul to Captain Lance. Lance is in a receptive mood having learned that basically everyone has been lying to him and concealing the fact of Sara's death, but I am still struck by the willingness of Arrow characters to accept the damning factoids handed out by their kidnappers.

Oliver hands himself in, but then Roy appears in the green costume and takes the rap in order to atone for his cop killing. Before anyone can do anything, he's shivved in jail, but it turns out that he set this up with Felicity and Diggle, and he was 'killed' by a mate of Diggles in order to vanish him from prison while 'killing' the Arrow. Lance still raids the basement of Verdant, however, and seizes all Team Arrow's stuff.

In flashback, Oliver tries to save Maseo, Tatsu and Akio from General Beastmaster's plan to, well, murder Hong Kong using the Alpha-Omega virus, but they can not prevent the release and Akio's vaccination doesn't take. Trauma ensues.

'Suicidal Tendencies' sees the return of the Suicide Squad, or at least Floyd Lawton and new assignee Cupid. Floyd gets his own flashbacks to the PTSD which alienated him from his own family, and ultimately makes the supreme sacrifice by redirecting Cupid's obsession onto himself, and then gives his life - apparently - to get Lyla and John back to their daughter. Oh! They also get married, with Oliver as best man and Ray as emergency officiant, and when ARGUS cover up that the senator they went in to rescue arranged his own abduction and a near massacre, Lyla quits.

I am really unconvinced by the practicality of the tassels on this new uniform.

Ra's plays his trump card by straight up murdering Thea Queen, but offering to bring her back via the Lazarus Pit if Oliver accepts his offer, which he does. Felicity gets all well-meaning femme fatale, drugging Oliver with a post-coital drink and trying to exfiltrate from Nanda Parbat while he's out, but he comes to and insists that they go free while he returns. He is then subjected to mind-altering training (see his apparent murder of Diggle left.)

Nyssa is pissed at Laurel, whom she is training, for not telling her that Oliver accepted the offer, pointing out that seriously, this is the same shit you pulled on your Dad and look how well that worked. She explains that as rival claimant to the title, he will bring as many assassins to Starling as it takes to bring her down. This Oliver does, kidnapping Lyla to get Team Arrow to step off and so triggering Team Arrow to realise that they have truly lost Oliver, and that their future plans can not include him.

Fortunately for Nyssa, Ra's may not be dad of the year, but he wusses out of having Oliver - that is to say, al Sa'him (the Arrow), as 'Oliver Queen lives only in the past' - kill her. Instead, he decides that his daughter and his heir will be getting hitched, before al Sa'him breaks utterly from his past by wiping out Starling City with the Alpha-Omega bioweapon.

Oh, and there are a couple of mentions of the current Ra's al Ghul's rival, Damien Dark (Daark? Daahk?) who ran off with some Lazarus water and formed his own organisation, a Hive of scum and villainy (the same term, Hive, being used for and by Floyd Lawton's original employers.)