TV Review: Arrow Season 8 Episode 7

Arrow Season 8 Episode 7 “Purgatory”

Director: James Bamford

Starring: Stephen Amell, David Ramsey, Rick Gonzalez, Juliana Harkavy, Katherine McNamara, Ben Lewis, Joseph David-Jones, LaMonica Garrett, Katie Cassidy, Audrey Marie Anderson, Andrea Sixtos

Rating: TV-14

Runtime: 42 minutes

Oliver: “Every mission has an end.”

Diggle: “I wish this one didn’t.”

It’s a powerful exchange on both character and meta-levels and it encapsulates why this episode is important and moving.  “Purgatory” is probably the last normal episode of Arrow ever (if one can consider any installment in this insanely ambitious final season normal).  The eighth episode of Season 8 is the fourth hour of the Crisis crossover, which will air as part of the events’ two-hour conclusion on January 14.  After that, there’s the backdoor pilot for the possible Green Arrow and the Canaries spin-off about Laurel, Mia, and Dinah, and then the series finale.  “Purgatory” features both one last mission for the full Team Arrow (without assistance from other heroes) and the start of the goodbye process.  It’s a subdued hour, maybe unexpectedly so, that satisfies with its character work even if it fails to live up to the standards for spectacle set by this season’s best episodes, such as “Starling City” and “Reset”.

Per the twist ending of “Reset”, Oliver and the team find themselves on Lian Yu.  Lyla explains that they’re there to ensure the creation of a device (cobbled together from this season’s various McGuffins) that won’t stop the Crisis but should protect the heroes necessary to do so.  The island is also giving off strong, Crisis-related energy pulses, that revive some of the people that died there including Edward Fyers, the Billy Wintergreen Deathstroke, and their army and Oliver’s island protector and first mentor Yao Fei (Byron Mann).  But the real drama is personal, as Oliver finally reveals that he knows he’s destined to die in Crisis to his children.  As usual, Mia’s reaction is harsher than her brother’s as her feelings of abandonment are revived by the revelation but with William’s help, she’s eventually able to let go of those feelings so the little time she has left with Oliver isn’t full of anger and resentment.  Oliver gets a similar lesson from Yao Fei who reminds him how important it is to say goodbye, despite the difficulty of doing so.  Amell, Lewis, and McNamara are all at the top of their games and the scenes in which Oliver finally says his goodbyes are made touching by their open-hearted, vulnerable work.

“Purgatory” also does a solid job of tying up the few character arcs that are incomplete, namely those of Roy, Diggle, and Lyla.  The former loses his arm as per comic canon and while at first, this seems like the latest example of the show making Roy the universe’s punching bag (which, to be honest, it still is) it also allows for a great scene in which he reaffirms his commitment to the superhero lifestyle, with all the risks and sacrifices that it entails.  It’s pretty clearly an attempt by the writers to make some sense of the sporadic, often contradictory ways the character has been used in the show’s later seasons but it works because Haynes gives such a committed, powerful performance, one of his best in the role.  Diggle should still totally feel bad about dragging Roy back though.  Speaking of Diggle his arc here revolves around accepting things he’s probably fought against, namely that there are parts of this final mission Oliver will have to do alone and that it may very well take his life and that while he often disagrees with her methods Lyla is ultimately on the side of the angels and that like Dig everything she does is to protect her family and friends.  David Ramsey and Audrey Marie Anderson really sell that last, longing look Dig and Lyla share before the latter steps through the portal the device creates.  It’s only a second before they’re separated, possibly forever, but the characters have finally truly accepted each other.

That process, of people making peace right before some, has to leave one another is a recurring part of this episode and it gives it a lot of weight.  That the episode manages to be both tragic and hopeful, often at the same time is a testament to the renewed strength of this season’s writing and it makes a lot of the episode’s flaws (the biggest being that Team Arrow’s final mission is kind of dull in terms of action) easy to overlook.  Crisis is here and Arrow, as it existed for seven and a half years, will never be again.  It was a hell of a ride.

Notes:

• So what big characters/actors didn’t get send-off appearances?  Slade Wilson (Manu Bennett), Nyssa al Ghul (Katrina Law), and Robert Queen (Jamey Sheridan) feel like the biggest omissions.  Shado (Celina Jade) was also a no-show, though Yao Fei and Oliver mention her several times tonight.
•  In terms of the current supporting cast, the open-ended nature of many of their arcs’ this season makes me wonder if even more than have already been announced will be sticking around the Arrowverse after the show ends.  William and Connor both feel like natural choices as supporting players for Green Arrow and the Canaries and there have been rumors online of Colton Haynes joining Legends, which Roy’s return to the superhero life lends some legitimacy to.

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