Posted in: DC Universe, Movies, TV | Tagged: arrow, Black Siren, cw, entertainment, HRL, John Diggle, oliver queen, Quentin Lance, television

Arrow Season 6, Episode 1 Recap: Fallout

This article contains spoilers for the Arrow season six premiere, 'Fallout'.

Arrow returned with its sixth season premiere last night, and it's about time. I know it was no longer than any of the other shows, but fans wanted to know who survived Lian Yu — and by fans, I was mainly talking about myself.

The show jumps right into the action with Green Arrow coming up out of the water to attack some guys on a boat/pier. Then he checks in with Spartan, and we get to see Wild Dog in a new costume. They're looking for a guy named Alex Faust, who seems to like bombs. Green Arrow stops him, but not before he launches a missile — but Mr. Terrific and his T-Sphere are able to turn it back towards the water. Back at the Bunker, Felicity brings Big Belly Burger for everyone after having sent her mom home to Vegas, and we get the idea that things are good between Oliver and Felicity — but strained because he's now taking care of William.

We get a look at what happened just before the bombs went off on Lian Yu. Slade bailed, leaving everyone else to take shelter in the broke airplane. Except Samantha ran off to find William and Thea went after her. Diggle gets caught in part of the blast. Then we cut back to today with Dinah Drake, now Lieutenant. She's about to interrogate Faust, who keeps asking for a drink. She finds a text from Quentin Lance and leaves, telling an officer to get Faust a soda. Faust knocks out his own tooth, drops it into the soda, and it blows up, taking out the wall and letting Black Siren and her men in.

Meanwhile, Dinah meets with Quentin, who is healthy but feeling guilty about what happened on the island. Turns out that after the explosion, he and Black Canary went back to the temple and found Black Siren alive, and she attacked. She was about to slice Dinah's throat when Lance shot and killer her, leaving her for dead… or so he thought.

Siren blows up most of the police station and leaves. Lance assumes it was because of him. They get a location from Argus on her and attack, but it doesn't go well. Spartan has a shot on someone and misses, his hand shaking badly. That guy then blows Wild Dog off the bridge, forcing Green Arrow to leap after him. He saves him, but Rene ends up in the hospital with a possible collapsed lung. Siren gets away and the team is certain she's going to hit the police academy graduation… she doesn't.

While they're at the graduation, Siren and her crew attack the bunker with only Diggle to protect it, and he can't seem to shoot straight. The team gets back in time to stop Siren and save John, but learn later that she stole a prototype T-Sphere. And we learn that she is working with/for someone… but who?

Other parts of the episode involve Oliver trying to connect with William, who blames Oliver for his mother's death. Yup, Samantha is dead. She died in Oliver's arms after asking him to take care of William. He was there because Slade ended up going back and lead Oliver to Thea… who is in a coma and on a breathing tube in the hospital still after five months.

Slade visits in the hospital, telling Oliver his intel on Slade's son was right and he was leaving. They have a sort of friendly/you still killed my mother moment. The end of the episode Oliver, who has been helped with William by Risa, the woman that helped raise him — and he seems to start to connect. And then the local news shows a picture of him in the Green Arrow costume without the mask on.

The episode was jam packed with both cleaning up last season's finale and laying the groundwork for the new season. I thought the reveal of the characters was done well, having certain ones not doing what you'd expect gave the moment of doubt. The toll on Lian Yu seems to be Samantha dead, Thea in a coma, Diggle wounded/shakey, and the rest of Team Arrow all good. Where Nyssa got off to we don't know, and Slade said Talia went towards Evelyn… perhaps to get a new protégé. I personally was nervous until we saw Quentin. Overall, the casualties were light, and there are some good storylines to follow coming out of it. There also seems to be an interesting chemistry going between Dinah and Diggle.

If I had to guess who picked up Black Siren form the island, I'd go with whoever Michael Emerson is going to be playing, as I get the feeling he is going to be the mastermind behind the bad guys. It may be Cayden James or another character altogether. It was nice to see other loose ends dealt with like Rene getting a second chance to get his daughter back.

There is a lot of "father" themes going on now. Slade is looking for Joe, Oliver is taking care of William, Rene trying to get Zoe back, Quenting dealing with his daughter's evil twin — and lets not forget that Diggle has a son (Thanks, Barry!) too.

Overall, this was a strong premiere, and it feels like the events of the season finale will have some real ramifications. Things that won't just be fixed in a few minutes with a speed force bazooka and a rubber ball — not that there's anything wrong with that.

Just when it looked like Oliver might have some of his life going okay so he could focus on connecting with his son and looking after his sister and his team, he had to go and get exposed in the media. This is a story line that won't be undone with simply having someone else wear the costume. This one is going to last for a while as Sydelle Noel, FBI Agent Samanda Watson, is now a recurring character. So get used to the idea of Oliver being closely watched.

https://youtu.be/O4ilbgVs978

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