Beacon of Hope – After hacking her way out of prison, Brie Laven, AKA Bug Eyed Bandit, lays siege to Palmer Technologies to obtain the miracle computer chip in Felicity’s spine. To stop her swarming scheme, the team will need help from an unexpected source.
For all the non-Flash fans out there (both of you), Felicity took on Bug Eyed Bandit (Emily Kinney – The Walking Dead’s Beth) and her army of robot bees as a hacker nemesis about a year while guest staring on a Flash episode. Now her character gets a Star City encore and while it makes for a largely fun episode, the biggest problem is that she’s no longer in Central City. While the episode does make some good satirical remarks about the lunacy of the events, especially from Quentin (“That is an army of robotic bees.... yeah, that’s my life now”), there are several points when it shifts too far outside Arrow’s more grounded tone. Seeing a swam of tiny form into a Megazord-like human-sized fighter is the kind of punch you’d role with on a Flash episode but here, it doesn’t just feel out of place, it feels downright stupid. Making your script into a honey pot of bee puns; that’s playful and mostly greeted with a cheesy grin. But destroying all believability in your villain just so your hero has someone to punch, now that’s just sloppy writing. It’s a shame because there’s a lot about the Bug-Eyed Bandit “Die hard movie with bees” setup that works really well. The visuals of the Palmer Tech building being encircled by a guarding swarm are excellent as is the unorthodox John McClane trio of Felicity, Thea and Donna (Felicity’s mom). It’s often been a well utilised tactic of the show this season to bring in Donna whenever Felicity needs to seem more level-headed and rational by out doing her on the crazy which works here as she takes top, save her company. Donna provides some good comic relief and even throws down an almost 4th wall breaking zinger in reconsidering her footwear choices, “From now on I’m wearing flats, these assaults are getting weekly, it’s ridiculous!”. You could argue that Thea is underutilised and becomes more of a third wheel to the trio (or a Michelle to their Destiny’s Child?,) but that gets a pass because this is intended as a Felicity-centric story. Emily Kinney acquits herself well the second time around and the final act revelations around her actions add some good depth.
The other big talking point of the episode is one Curtis “Mr Terrific” Holt who finally joins the Team Arrow ranks. Once you’ve fought past asking yourself why it’s taken 16 episodes to finally happen, everything from this bronze medal decathlete is gold. He fills the Felicity role perfectly within the team while still delivering his own unique character. He’s like a gene-splicing of Felicity, Cisco, a free runner and 3 ounces of caffeine in his hyperactive but physically capable geekiness. He fully channels the audience as he freaks out over how cool The Arrow Cave and the team are while nervously churning through pop culture references (kudos to Quentin for chipping in there too). We’re finally seeing Curtis take the steps towards being Mr Terrific that we’ve been crying out for all season. The prototype T-sphere’s get used as explosives, he name checks himself but most of all, the granddaddy of hero/vigilante foreshadowing comes as he lies to his other half about his actions. The moment someone starts breaking out the lying and lame excuses there’s only one way it can end. This also has great implications from a season perspective as with Curtis scoring form the subs bench the writers don’t need to rush Felicity back into the team. Of course, we know she’ll be back eventually, sure as Luke Skywalker will actually say something in the next film, but removing any urgent plot necessity, it allows her to have her own decent running storyline outside the team first. That looks to have begun this week with her desire to make Palmer Tech into a beacon of hope for the city and beyond.
The Island flashbacks have a weak episode. While seeing and understanding the powers of the idol is cool, like last week, it’s just too minimal on the content and really these last two episodes of flashback scenes/story should have been crammed into one. However, the Darhk days in prison scenes are much more rewarding, especially the power shifting exchange between Darhk and Merlyn. Yet despite the tone of Darhk being kicked when he’s dow,n there’s a superb flipside effect here of rebuilding his villainous infamy despite the loss of his powers as he overcomes the situations.
Beacon of Hope is an episode that walks the line between being insanely fun and downright dumb. When it slips, it gets stung but when it finds, the right balance it flies true. Following last week’s Broken Hearts, it marks back to back shaky episodes so the team really needs to pull a good one of the quiver next week. Although, with the promos teasing a big death and the “end of an era”, that might just bee on the cards.