Review: Arrow ‘Sacrifice’

After 22 episodes and several months of watching and waiting, the season finale of Arrow is finally upon us.  With so much being built up over the course of the season, they had a lot of loose ends to tie up (and even more to leave hanging for season 2).  The end result of all this hard work, including sitting through some episodes that were truly hard to watch, turned out to be well worth it.  The finale of Arrow, “Sacrifice”, was nothing less than spectacular.

The episode begins with Oliver being held prisoner by Malcolm Merlyn.  They have a brief conversation about the nature of dedication and the question of each man’s devotion to killing.  Malcolm explains that Oliver just doesn’t have what it takes to beat him.  Oliver, being such a natural bad-ass, manages to escape from his chains and heads out to stop Malcolm’s plans to earthquake the Glades to the ground.  He calls in the help of his crew as well as Detective Lance, though the cops are unwilling to evacuate the Glades based on some information from The Hood. 

This reluctance changes quickly once Moira steps up in front of a camera crew and tells the world about Malcolm’s plan and her involvement.  While the Glades are being evacuated, Arrow and company set out to find the earthquake machine and disarm it.  He sends Lance to find the machine, with Felicity acting as his remote helper to disarm it.  Meanwhile, he and Diggle go hunting the Dark Archer.  A final fight ensues, Arrow finally comes out on top and even though Lance deactivates the machine, Malcolm is a smart guy and actually has two.  What should be a victory turns out to be much less.  What’s more, Tommy ends up losing his life in the process, dying in poor Oliver’s arms.

In the past, one chapter of Oliver’s life on the island is finally resolved when the missile is launched by Fyers.  A battle between the good team and the bad team ensues and Oliver and company manage to reprogram the missile at the last moment.  A final confrontation comes between Oliver and Fyers and our hero finally gets a chance to plant an arrow in someone.

I’m very happy that they didn’t go the route I thought they would with this one.  I expected Tommy to sit around oblivious to his father’s crimes and then, once Oliver had taken the Dark Archer down, to seek some sort of vengeance.  In fact, Tommy is told all about the Undertaking from Malcolm and, to his credit, is firmly against what his father is doing.

This is a brilliant conclusion to a series that has been less than stellar on many occasions.  There’s plenty of action, the resolution of some storylines and the opening of some new ones and pretty much everyone gets involved in one way or another.  The ending is not a happy one, which makes it even better.  Oliver thought he might be retiring after the whole affair but it looks like he’s just getting started.  The season ends in chaos and I can honestly say that my mouth is watering to see what they bring for season 2.  Let’s hope we see a steering away from the “bad guy of the week” format and a more developed central plot. 

The only bad thing about season 1 ending is the death of Malcolm Merlyn.  John Barrowman has proven to be one of the series’ high points and it will be a shame to lose him.  I am looking forward to more Felicity though, and now that she’s been outed as an Arrow supporter to Detective Lance, I’m guessing she’ll be working as a liaison as well.  And so ends my review of Arrow until the new season hits sometime this fall.  If you can't wait until then, I recommend this interview to find out what they have planned for us in the coming months.

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