Posted in: Movies, TV | Tagged: arrow, Arrow: The Magician, cw, entertainment, superheroes

Arrow: The Magician – This Week In Recap

By Rich Epstein

[*Spoilers for Arrow: The Magician below!]

It's been three episodes since Sara died and the Arrow team is still dealing with the repercussions.  This week's episode begins with Nyssa holding Oliver at arrow-point and demanding to know where Sara is.  Needless to say, she takes the news pretty hard and is less than happy when Oliver tells her that Sara is buried in a seven year old grave.  When Nyssa leaves, Oliver has Roy follow her.

From there we jump right into the action with…Oliver and Thea having dinner.  Ugh.  These scenes have never worked for me in the past, and this one is no different.  Basically, Thea is re-opening Verdant thanks to some investors (Malcolm?).  Oliver says that she seems stronger. There isn't a whole lot of chemistry between Stephen Armell and Willa Holland and things just seem awkward.  I get that they are hiding things from each other, and there would be a certain amount of tension, but the truth is every time these two talk it just bores me.

Time for a very quick flashback.  We see Oliver following a target, supposedly a terrorist.

Oh hey…just when the episode seemed a little slow, we get Laurel at her sister's grave. This episode definitely started out a little slow, but it will get better soon. I promise. Nyssa appears and Laurel blames Nyssa and her father (first mention of Ra's al Ghul this season) for Sara's death.  Nyssa tells Laurel how much she cared for Sara and then says that Laurel isn't fit to wear Sara's jacket.  Burn!

Here's the problem with Laurel…going back to season 1, all she has done is complain about everything.  So, when she has some legitimate gripes, like the fact that her sister joined the League of Assassins and was the assassinated, it comes off as just more of the same for her. She is constantly anguished, to the point where we no longer care.

Roy follows Nyssa to a safe house, and Oliver goes to meet her.  It turns out that it was Sara's hideout, and that she was there on assignment for the League of Assassins.  Oliver suggests that her target was probably her killer and Nyssa tells him that she was searching for…Malcolm Merlyn.  They head back to the Arrowcave, and Nyssa informs the group (minus Felicity, who is still in Starling City) that Merlyn was a member of the League.  Ra's let him out of his oath, but only after he agreed to be on his best behavior. The League was not cool with Merlyn destroying half of a city, but thought he was dead, so, case closed.  Then Arrow's mom told the league that Merlyn was still alive.  Interesting.  How much contact did she have with the league? We knew that she was involved with Merlyn (in more ways than one), but she has other contacts in the League?  Did I forget something here?

The team (plus Nyssa) learn that Sara believed Merlyn might have been granted asylum by a monk at a Buddhist monastery.  Nyssa finds the monk, or so she thinks.  Turns out it's actually Merlyn.

This is what I love about Arrow, it doesn't tease things out unnecessarily.  Oliver learns Merlyn's alive, a few minutes later the team finds Merlyn.  Some shows would wait weeks to give the main character a glimpse of his arch enemy.  Not Arrow.  Keep in mind that we aren't even halfway through an episode that I thought started out slow, and already the team has joined forces with Nyssa, found out that Merlyn is alive and tracked him down. Anyway, Merlyn quickly disarms Nyssa and escapes in a puff of smoke, but not before Oliver nicks him with an arrow.  The two have a stare down before Merlyn gets away.

Next, it's back to Arrow's lair, and it turns out that the arrow that nicked Merlyn was a trick arrow.  He tagged Merlyn with some kind of compound that he can track anywhere in the world.  Laurel wants Merlyn dead, but Oliver says he is no longer a killer.  She storms off, and he sends Roy to watch after Thea in case Merlyn makes contact (a little late for that).

Another quick flashback.  This time, Oliver kills the target and takes a flash drive off the body.

Nyssa tracks down Laurel and promises to find, and kill, Merlyn.

The tracker leads Arrow to an abandoned factory, but no Merlyn.  Turns out Merlyn was onto the tracker and tells Oliver (through a speaker somewhere in the building) that they need to meet.  Alone, of course.

The meeting happens (again, things move quickly on this show), and Merlyn denies having killed Sara.  Merlyn tells Arrow that he came back to Starling to protect Thea, not to kill Nyssa.  Merlyn admits to being a killer, but swears on Thea's life that he is not Sara's killer.  I don't know, maybe it isn't the best move in the world to tell someone that you swear on his sister's life.  It seems kind of glib.  Lucky for him, Oliver buys it.

More Oliver and Thea.  He tells her that he is trying to live up to his promise of no more secrets (except for, you know, the fact that he is the Arrow and everything that he is done, and everything that has happened to him etc.), and tells her that Merlyn is alive.  Thea pretends to think that Merlyn is dead and acts afraid.  Oliver assures her that Merlyn would have contacted her already if he planned to do so.  We get it.  This family is built on secrets and can't help but lie to each other.  The problem is the scenes between them just aren't that interesting.

Oliver then tells his team that Merlyn says he didn't do it and that Oliver believes him because he swore on his daughter's life. As it turns out, the League suspected but didn't know that Merlyn had a child. Oops.  Oliver then says that Thea is the daughter.  Why, I don't know.  Seems like he is putting his own sister in danger needlessly.  I mean, Nyssa says the League will track her down, but they haven't managed to yet.  And if it takes them months to find Thea, wouldn't that be better?  Nyssa storms off to find Merlyn.  Diggle and Roy try to persuade Oliver to let her kill Merlyn and Oliver sends Roy off to protect Thea.

Flashback…Oliver laments that he killed a man and doesn't even know why.  Maseo tells him that it's better that way.  Oliver bribes Maseo's kid into letting him use the computer in order to look at what is on the thumb drive he took off the body, then demands a meeting with Waller.

Nyssa tracks down Thea, who is with Roy.  Roy does a flip over a car to get in front of Thea, and is promptly hit with a dart and goes down.  This is great.  Sure, Roy has been training, but he isn't in the big-boys league yet, and it shows.  Thea steps up to protect Roy, and Nyssa says she isn't there for Roy.  Thea meekly goes with her.  Interesting…Thea looks at Roy, then just submits to Nyssa. Did watching Roy get knocked out make her realize that Nyssa is out of her league?  Or, did Merlyn warn her to keep her training secret?

Merlyn is looking for Thea when he sees purple smoke in the distance. Laurel sees it to and tells Oliver.  Showdown time!

Nyssa has Thea hanging upside down in another abandoned building.  Oliver saves her and the fight with Nyssa is on.  Really good fight scene.  She gets the upper-hand until Merlyn joins the fray in full Dark Arrow gear.  Merlyn manages to pin down Nyssa when Oliver turns and disarms Merlyn.  Nyssa tries to get Oliver to kill Merlyn, but Oliver doesn't want to kill.  Merlyn says that there is blood on his hands but he didn't kill her beloved.  Merlyn tells him that no prison can hold him, not even the one on the Island (does he know that Slade Wilson is being kept there?).  If Oliver wants to stop Merlyn, the only way is to break his vow and kill Thea's father.

Oliver lets him go, later saying that if he thought Merlyn killed Sara, Oliver never would have let him go.  Huh?  Did I miss something?  Just because he says he can break out of any prison, you aren't even going to try?  You are just going to let a murderer walk to murder again?  Maybe he can break out of any prison.  And maybe not.  Shouldn't you at least see?  One of two questionable decisions by Oliver this week, and one of the few times that this show has lost me.  I understand not wanting to kill, but letting your arch enemy walk?  So does this mean you are never going to bother trying to stop him?  Is he free to kill at will so long as he doesn't kill anyone Oliver cares about?  You know, except for Tommy.

Back at the cave, Nyssa is a little pissed. She walks off, but not before Oliver warns her that so long as Merlyn is in Starling City he is under the Arrow's protection.  She tells him that he made an enemy.

Time for our last flashback.  Oliver meets with Waller.  He tells her knows that the person who he killed worked for her.  Remember that time way back in Season 1 when Oliver was on the Island and stopped Edward Fyers from blowing up the plane?  Turns out it was Waller, willing to blow up an entire plane to try and get at China White.  She is evil.

One last meeting between Laurel and Nyssa, this time while Laurel is training.  Nyssa makes nice and basically tells her she does deserve to wear the jacket. Awww.

Thea hires Roy to be assistant manager of the club.  Merlyn calls, and Thea lies to Roy, pretending it is the designer for the club.  Merlyn tells her that Nyssa will never hurt her.

The show ends with our first look at Ra's al Ghul.  Nyssa reports what had happened and Ra's tells her that Merlyn will pay for betraying the League.  He asks of Oliver and Nyssa tells Ra's that Oliver has pledged to protect Merlyn at any cost.  Ra's tells his daughter that Oliver has courted war with the league.  Lots of villains out there right now…Waller, the League, Merlyn…you have to wonder where this is all leading.

Rich Epstein writes for Bleeding Cool.  He can be found on twitter at @kaspe_r11. 

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