Arrow - Dangerous Liaisons - Review

Arrow “Dangerous Liaisons” was written by the team of Speed Weed and Elizabeth Kim and was directed by Joel Novoa, whose directing credits are sparse and rather obscure. This is Kim’s first writing credit, although she’s been assistant to Marc Guggenheim on Legends of Tomorrow. Once again, this episode felt like a re-tread of so many other episodes and storylines. The episode also felt like we were simply treading water, waiting until closer to the end of the season to finally take care of Chase (Josh Segarra).

I think the thing that may be most irritating me about this season is the lack of consistency in characterization. We keep getting characters having a “dark night of the soul” only to come back and be righteously indignant about other characters making the same choices – granted, you might think those characters would learn from the others’ mistakes… Felicity (Emily Bett Rickards) kept telling Oliver (Stephen Amell) not to cross the line, and she saw first hand what it did to him, yet when he actually points this out to her, she continues down the same path.

When Lyla (Audrey Marie Anderson) is discovered to have made some questionable decisions about locking up prisoners with no trial, judge, lawyers or due process of any kind, Diggle (David Ramsey) wants to know where the justice is. Conveniently forgetting about Slade Wilson locked in a cell on the Island or all the metas that The Flash has locked in his own private prison! It would seem, as Diggle points out that they’ve been down this road before – he and Lyla. She suggests that they just stop – but he’s not sure he can. Has he learned nothing from his own experience killing his brother? What happened to him being thrown from his own moral high horse? It would seem that we are heading inexorably toward yet another break up between these two…

Was anybody actually shocked when it turned out that Helix and Alena (Kacey Rohl) were only using Felicity for their own ends? And now that storyline is apparently just done. So does Felicity just go back to being Overwatch? Oliver actually apologizes to Felicity only to have her angry that he didn’t back her play and didn’t trust her even after all these years – yet she’s been continually telling them that she doesn’t need to be protected and that she’s willing to cross the line. She’s suddenly not the person they know by her own words, yet she expects them to treat her as the person they know.

The only part of this episode that I actually liked was Quentin (Paul Blackthorne) taking Rene (Rick Gonzalez) really under his wing and forcing him to reunite with his daughter Zoe (Eliza Faria). Both Blackthorne and Gonzalez deliver good performances. I really liked that Zoe is desperate to get back together with her father – though you might think she might harbor some resentment towards him for not trying to even see her, but I’m willing to hand wave that a bit. It’s a nice fit that Quentin had such a bond with his own daughters that he would understand how important this is to Rene. I really want to see Rene and Zoe move in with Quentin – he could be a permanent court-appointed supervisor! And they would be good for him to have support too.

For almost the entire episode, I just kept wishing that Curtis (Echo Kellum) would shut up. Really, if they need to kill someone else off, please let it be him. Of all the costumes that are stupid, his face mask is also the stupidest – but mainly, it’s just not funny when he gets verbal diarrhea. Also? Were those boots with 5 inch heels that Felicity had on supposed to be sensible field work shoes? Because – fail.

The episode ends dramatically with the bio-metric locating Chase in the lair with Oliver and Felicity just before there’s a huge explosion that sends them flying. What did you think of the episode? Let me know your thoughts in the comments below.