Life Sentence
- Episode aired May 17, 2018
- TV-14
- 42m
With a new ally on his team, Oliver engages Diaz in an epic final battle.With a new ally on his team, Oliver engages Diaz in an epic final battle.With a new ally on his team, Oliver engages Diaz in an epic final battle.
Storyline
Did you know
- TriviaCalling the assassins the Long Bow Hunters is a nod to the limited series "Green Arrow, the Long Bow Hunters" from 1987. The Arrow show owes a lot to this series as it moved the Green Arrow character in a darker direction moving away from trick arrows and gimmicks to traditional arrows, just like the show. It also introduced Shado and Eddie Fyers also key characters in the Arrow series.
- GoofsFelicity is clearly just tapping her fingers on her keyboard at one point, not even pressing the keys while typing.
- Quotes
Reporter: Mr. Queen, why are you being arrested again?
Oliver Queen: I have voluntarily, uh, handed myself over to the FBI.
Reporter: Can you comment any further?
Oliver Queen: Yes, I can.
[looks at the TV camera]
Oliver Queen: I am the Green Arrow. I realized that I denied that claim with the same conviction with which I'm speaking now. I have let good people stand accused of things that I've done. Roy Harper is not the Green Arrow. Tommy Merlyn is most certainly not the Green Arrow. These are two names on a long list of people who hav given so much and sacrificed everything in the name of my crusade. Some of them gave their lives in the pursuit of one simple objective - to save our city. Star City still needs saving. Last night, we dealt our enemy a critical blow, but there is still work to be done, so I'm looking to the people of this city, I'm looking to my allies, to my friends, to my partners... and asking them to continue, to keep fighting. I'm asking them to complete our mission... to save our city.
- ConnectionsReferences Old Yeller (1957)
"The team can't take down Diaz and his men themselves, even though they've dealt with Slade's Mirakuru soldiers and the League of Assassins before.... The Arrow writers miss too many of the little and even big details to truly make this storyline fulfilling. I won't harp on Diaz for too much longer, but the fact that he's the villain who finally forces Oliver to out himself as the Green Arrow is insulting to the character of Oliver Queen. No matter what Black Siren or anyone else tries to tell me, Diaz has always been a drug-dealing, bullying thug, who is maybe worth one episode of Oliver's time, not an entire season. The fact that the creative team never showed us how dominating of a foe he was throughout Season 6 but had to consistently tell us is one of this season's most destructive flaws. Worse than Diaz, though, is what the writers did to characters we loved or were growing to love throughout Season 6. Rene, Dinah, and even Diggle suddenly behaved wildly out-of-character during this season strictly for the means of the plot. The writers had an idea in their minds, to make Oliver feel at his most lonely and vulnerable and desperate, so that he would be in a place where he felt he had to make this type of sacrifice at the end of the season. However, in order to push Oliver to that place, we had to have Rene choose to betray Oliver in order to save Zoe instead of working with his friend and leader to help protect her. We had to have Dinah hypocritically call Oliver, Felicity, and Diggle out for lying while she was hiding her relationship with Vince from them. We had to have Diggle want to be the Green Arrow for reasons he can't even fully articulate during this finale and question Oliver's leadership after five-plus years of standing by him. All of this conflict has been unearned and manufactured, and unfortunately, it's why so many of Oliver's conversations (I refuse to call them apologies cause Oliver has nothing to apologize for) with his teammates, even with Dig, fall flat for me throughout "Life Sentence." There's no real emotional foundation for these exchanges to stand on after the inconsistent character work of Season 6, and therefore, what are supposed to be these authentic moments between friends feel just as hastily assembled as the original problems that pushed them apart. Even parts of these scenes that do somewhat work for me, such as Diggle telling Oliver that having two Green Arrows would diminish the importance of what the GA stands for and Dinah saying that she respects him more than he could ever know, still ring false. In these moments, Diggle and Dinah feel like the versions of who their characters used to be before their dramatic personality shifts, and there hasn't been enough ownership of their own faults and self-reflection to explain how they could suddenly switch back to the people they used to be.... Black Siren has done a lot of reprehensible things throughout Season 6, but I don't think I'll ever forgive her for helping to let Diaz go, even if it was accidental. The fact that Diaz is still alive after this season has me furious, and I don't care how cool the Longbow Hunters sound."
One last point. Chris King ends his review with wishes for an improved Season 7. I don't believe they can do it.
- luislast
- May 18, 2018
Details
- Runtime42 minutes
- Color
- Sound mix
- Aspect ratio
- 16:9 HD