I've been hard on Arrow through 3 weeks, but it's actually been more of a passive hate. In reality, the show has yet to grab my true investment through 3 episodes. Tonight's episode provided a little bit of hope that this season won't be all bad, perhaps just mediocre and passable. But after season 6, I'll take it.
We finally caught back up with the flashforwards as William and Roy found their way back to Star City, which eventually lead them to a barely aged Dinah and a suited up Zoe. Both of them provided some intriguing knowledge of future Felicity and Rene. The latter apparently won't step back into Star City and Felicity, well I guess she's dead in the future. Again, I'm not going to put too much weight into the flashforwards, because I just don't care enough about seeing future versions of any of these characters. Let the show play out as it is. But with that said, it at least gives me someone to guess/make predictions on from week to week. That is, why exactly the reason we need the flashforwards in the first place.
In present day, Oliver found himself in the middle of a Clockwork Orange type scenario with him going through various forms of torture and interrogation for him to submit to Dr. Jarrett Parker. I'm not sure how big of a role he's going to play this year, but I thought he brought up a solid amount of charisma to those scenes, which in turn gave us some food for thought about Oliver and his father Robert. In a way, the prison is Oliver's new island. His new "crucible" per say. On a side note, I liked that this episode also gave a few nods to another father of the Arrowverse, Quentin Lance. Man, do I miss when this show was really good in seasons 1-3.
The rest of the episode was completely serviceable, with Rene actually having a pretty good night acting wise, Dinah finally coming around on the whole vigilante thing (for now), and Felicity drawing closer to Diaz. I can't say the whole Laurel angle is working, because it's not and I'm not sure it ever will. But I found myself invested in this episode from beginning to end. It's certainly the best episode of season 7.
8.0/10