Arrow Spoiler Review: ‘Who Are You?’

With everything that Oliver and Felicity have been through it’s hard to see how they bought into “Laurel’s” story so quickly. Though Felicity is acting suspicious with mentioning having a party. Using the Legends of Tomorrow as part of the reason why Laurel is back is good cross-promotion.

John Diggle’s storyline with being targeted by the military has slowly been getting better. This scene with Oliver is a good reminder that John is the best adult character.

The welcome back party is extremely small with only Team Arrow there. Makes the apartment they are in feel empty, especially since Rene and Rory don’t have a connection to Laurel.

Felicity acting suspicious makes sense now. Good to see at least one character not believing this Laurel’s story about how she returned.

Bringing up the evil twin as a reminder of Earth-2 Black Siren was a great touch. Katie Cassidy does a much better job playing Laurel as a bad guy. The Canary Scream looks really good in action.

Prometheus has really gone through everything that is related to Arrow, even finding out about Black Siren who only appeared in The Flash. He may be the Arrowverse’s greatest detective. He is at least doing his best to channel his inner “Batman” with how he intimidated Black Siren.

Even though Detective Malone was never developed enough for us to care about him or his relationship with Felicity it is good to see he isn’t forgotten. His death could be a big catalyst to make Oliver’s life harder as the mayor and Arrow.

Oliver needs to get Team Arrow in line more. That or he and Felicity need to have a big talk about her attitude, which probably won’t go well if that happens. She has definitely been trigger happy and doing some questionable things like this where she orders Team Arrow to take Black Siren down before Arrow could do anything.

Curtis has not been having the best few weeks. Rene making Curtis have to actually talk about his troubles is possibly the best Rene has been portrayed. Also it may be time for Curtis to start developing some special tech to compliment his current abilities. Maybe some orb-like tech.

Felicity calling out Oliver for letting his feelings for Laurel cloud his judgement is a good way to move these two characters forward. Felicity is definitely more affected by her boyfriend’s death than she is letting Oliver and the others know.

I know I said it already, but Katie Cassidy is absolutely best work. The scenes she has had with Oliver and Felicity while locked up have been the best development any version of Laurel has gotten.

Oliver’s face looks brutal in the flashback scenes. Gregor has not held back in terms of letting his men hold back in their punches to Oliver’s face.

The actor playing John Diggle’s general has really nailed the intimidating old guy character. Chase looked terrified with that 24 hour threat by the general.

It’s odd that Evelyn is not with Prometheus and Black Siren in this fight against Team Arrow. Would further drive home how much damage Prometheus has done to Oliver with her also fighting the team.

It’s also odd that Promethus just suddenly disappeared after kicking Arrow through a box. Shouldn’t he have been there to attack Arrow and his team alongside Black Siren? Because as cool as it was to see Mister Terrific help take Black Siren down, and Felicity knocking her out with a punch, Prometheus presence should’ve still made it so the bad guys won the fight.

It is odd to see Oliver play the calm and collective one while Felicity is the trigger happy one. This does balance each other out but still not used to seeing Oliver this way in Arrow.

Well it looks like Arrow being a replacement for Batman is complete with Talia Al Ghul’s appearance in the flashback. Wonder what that means for the present day events.

Can they try a little less hard to let us know that there will be a new Black Canary on the show?

Final Thoughts

‘Who Are You?’ did a good job kick starting the second half of the season. There were a few things, like Evelyn not being in this episode and Prometheus sudden disappearance from the final fight, that keep this from being a stellar episode of Arrow. That said, Katie Cassidy as Earth-2 Black Siren was able to carry the majority of this episode. It’s definitely her best performance as Laurel on Arrow.

That strong character development also extends to Curtis and Rene’s interaction with one another. Curtis’ current character struggles should push him to become the Mister Terrific we know from the comics. And Rene got his best screen time since he debut this season. He didn’t have any “eye-roll” moments and actually showed that he wants to help rather than just cause more problems for those around him.

The tease for the new Black Canary and Talia Al Ghul at the end of the episode sets plenty of things up. It’ll be particularly interesting to see what role Talia plays into the show given with Oliver’s present day connection to the League of Assassins. Her appearance could end up extending to the present day conflict with Prometheus, which would add another layer that connects this season with the League of Assassins season.