ARROW - Unchained

Episode synopsis: The team faced a daunting tech-savvy adversary known as The Calculator. Back in Nanda Parbat, Nyssa escapes and is on a mission. Arsenal, Roy Harper is back to Star City

Arrow season 4 episode 12 was unchained alright because it had a whole lot of things going on which almost seem like too much for one episode tbh but that doesn’t quite mean it wasn’t a good episode because it was great actually. I enjoyed it. So… in few bullets, here’s unchained:

• Team Arrow was after a new burglar in town who turned out to be Roy Harper
• Roy is being blackmailed to steal tech by some evil genius named The Calculator
• The Calculator turns out to actually be quite a formidable computer guru like Felicity
• As always, team Arrow was able to thwart his plan and save the city from damnation
• The effects of the pit stats to take it pretty serious with Thea
• Palmer Tech launches a new power battery
• Felicity’s dad is in town
• Nyssa escaped and is out for revenge

The episode started with Nyssa’s escape from her prison in Nanda Parbat. It actually felt refreshing to see Nanda Parbat, it’s been a while. So… Nyssa’s escape. As it should be, we saw that some of the league members didn’t quite agree with the choice of leadership change. Team Nyssa assassins took over and escaped with their boss while Ra’s Al Ghul (Malcolm Merlyn) was AWOL from the fortress. Daddy duty calls. I expected the fight here to be more action-packed. The fight was good but I wanted it to be great, it’s the League of Assassins we’re talking about here for Arrow’s sake. Anyways, the heir to the demon escaped and was able to make her way to someplace called Kyushu in Japan (just how close is the league’s base to Japan anyways, just asking). Apparently she came to this place to get a Lotus portion (what for, we found out later) which happens to be guarded by Tatsu, now a member of the Crescent. They had a brief cool sword-fight and talked, it would seem.

Thea, poor Thea. Her first episode happened in their first chase after the burglar in town stealing crazy tech from big companies. She fainted and almost fell. More intense stuff happened to her afterwards and as usual Oliver blames himself for her situation. According to daddy dearest, apparently if she won't take a life to cure her blood lust, the pit would take hers. Oliver learnt about the temporary cure through Darhk’s touch and planned to bargain to get Darhk’s help but he was talked out of it eventually.

In the spirit of the Darhk-ians, a new mayoral candidate was announced and guess who it is? Evil Mrs. Darhk. God save Star City now. Genesis has begun earnestly I can assume. The burglar stealing tech turned out to be Roy Harper who is being blackmailed by some evil genius named The Calculator (funny name, Felicity obviously hates the name). The Calculator got his parts complete and was going to blow out stuff to kill quite a number of people (a lot actually) in Star City but thanks to our IT girl, Overwatch, Team Arrow was able to save the day and all files he had on Roy was wiped. Roy is in the clear now and can go off t live far far away. The scene with Roy and Thea’s love confession and all was quite emotional. I genuinely felt it and loved the perfection of the scene. Good acting.

In flashbacks, Oliver had visions of Shado in his hallucination who told him the only way out is through his darkness and basically gave him some sensei lessons on forgiving himself, being truthful and all. She even gave him a stone with some inscription on it that happened to be with him when he woke up. Don’t know how that happened. But hey, he confessed about killing that Taiana’s brother and boy am I glad that is out or what.

Felicity had some issues with making a presentation of the new tech Curtis worked on to the board but thanks to a pep talk from Curtis, she pulled through. And speaking of Curtis, he put up quite a fight when Roy was going to steal that battery from Palmer Technologies. Looks like he had some training before. Hmm… and wait for it (no don’t. you already know it. The Calculator turned out to be Felicity’s dad (raise your hand if you saw that one coming because I didn’t).

So, Nyssa got the portion and it apparently is the cure to Thea’s problem and she would give it to Oliver only on one condition: Kill Malcom Merlyn. Just when he gave a beautiful speech and was being a nice loving dad and Oliver even shook hands with him to thank him. Tough luck to Oliver. I have a feeling John Constantine might be back though. He was mentioned as being the reason for Sara’s sanity unlike Thea. I guess Oliver might have to look to him for help if he cannot kill Malcolm which I doubt he will, it wouldn’t be really right, they are on good terms right now. I honestly would just love to see Constantine on the show again, I’m probably only looking for a reason.

Though this episode in general had a lot going on, it was a good one. What did you think of Unchained?

Catch new episodes of Arrow on the CW at 8/7c on Wednesdays

QUOTES FROM UNCHAINED

Roy: Do you ever get tired. You know, carrying the weight of the world on your shoulders like that.

Oliver: You sound like Felicity... and Diggle

Roy: Well, great minds

Felicty: If I had any luck looking for what I'm looking for I would be telling you about it instead of looking for it

Shado: You need to forgive yourself for what you've done

Oliver: Unfortunately, You're gonna have to be a little bit more specific

Merlyn: I am the demon's head. I have my resources and I know how to put my ears against the door

Merlyn: Sometimes the greatest action of love is no action at all

Thea: You know, you should be nurse in your new life. You're a natural

Roy: Only problem is I am a one-patient man and I am already committed to you

Passing note:

• One of the companies Roy stole from was Cadmus, the evil corporation owned by popular evil child, Lex Luthor, same company responsible for cloning Arsenal and creating Superboy from the comics. 
• Laurel talked about a person who is able to make themselves look Roy. (Like J'onn J'onzz, Supergirl reference, anyone?)