Arrow: Five Predictions For the Rest of the Season
With 'Suicide Squad' behind us and 'Birds of Prey' just around the corner, it seems that Arrow is [...]
With "Suicide Squad" behind us and "Birds of Prey" just around the corner, it seems that Arrow is set for a shifting of gears into major Season Two finale prep when it comes back from what looks to be its last off-week of the season in April. The recently-teased "Deathstroke" episode as well as the Flash-centric "The Man Under the Hood" seem to be less about big, action-driven set pieces than about world-building and mythology. And then there are plans for a massive finale that they say will have to shut down streets and feature a multifaceted conflict, presumably with Deathstroke and the Blood Cult facing off against Team Arrow, possibly with the Suicide Squad and/or the League of Assassins thrown in for good measure. Meanwhile, Oliver's personal life isn't exactly stable, either. he's been pushing away Sara Lance -- both his girlfriend and part of his crimefighting team -- in order to protect her from danger he thinks is coming from Deathstroke. His relationship with his mother (who is running for mayor against Brother Blood) is strained at best. And his company still has a major shareholder with her own, as-yet-unclear agenda who already tried once to take over the company so she could sell it for parts. So -- what do we see coming down the pike? A few things...
Oliver and Waller, working together Will Oliver Queen become part of the Suicide Squad? Doubtful...but certainly it seems likely he'll enlist Amanda's aid to get rid of Deathstroke. Exactly what shape that will take is hard to say, but while Amanda has a high-ranking position inside of A.R.G.U.S., there's a fair chance Sara Lance is on their most-wanted list (we already know Nyssa Raatko, the daughter of Ra's al Ghul and Sara's former lover, is) and even if not, the odds that they'll like her working with the Arrow aren't great. That leaves Task Force X, her personal "Suicide Squad" and a group that's worked with Team Arrow before -- twice, now. And a group that, for better or worse, Diggle and Oliver seem to have come to grips with working around. So, will Oliver and Amanda's apparent past together prove to be something that brings the Squad together with Team Arrow against Deathstroke? Doesn't seem too farfetched. And...what the heck kind of past do they have, anyway? How many DC heroes and villains were born on that island?
A death in the family If not an actual death, some serious, severe repercussions for either Moira or Thea Queen feel like they're coming down the pike. There's a recurring theme in this season about the nature of truth, and whether or not you should tell somebody something that can hurt them. This is especially true surrounding Moira, and she's made comments about Oliver's dishonesty (not realizing how deep it runs, obviously, since he's protecting his secret identity). We're at the point in the season where all of those secrets are starting to come back to haunt people. Oliver keeping the true nature of Shado's death from his friend led to a rift on the island that has reverberations all the way to the present. Moira hiding (even more) information about Merlyn from her kids has led to her estrangement from Oliver and, ultimately, left her open to Slade's manipulations. Walter Steele is probably the most likely, since he's the most expendable...but to what end? It wouldn't impact Oliver nearly as much the others. The loss of Thea would be crippling for Oliver as well as for Roy, and would theoretically have reverberations through the Lance family, too, who both have known her for years and, in Sara's case, works with her daily. It could set up Sara to run Verdant next season, keeping her in the show even if something were to happen to her relationship with Oliver, and/or if she were to leave Team Arrow (in a conversation with reporters recently, Executive Producer Marc Guggenheim teased of the pair, "Where they are right now is not where they'll end up at the end of the year, either personally or professionally."). The loss of Moira probably makes more sense. She still hasn't paid for her sins in Season One, and only really showed any guilt or remorse while she was behind bars. Not only is her behavior repulsive to Oliver, but hatred for Moira and what she represents was a major driver for Sebastian Blood in the first half of the season. It would also throw things at Queen Consolidated even further into chaos. Note: We're not predicting anything about the Queen Consolidated plot because the photos for "Deathstroke" seem to paint a fairly clear picture, but we would either be stating the obvious or falling for a ruse. We'll just admit we're not sure just where they're taking that one yet.
The mayoral race will get ugly Will Slade reveal the truth about Thea's parentage (assuming he knows)? Will he kill one (or both) of the candidates? It's hard to say. Certainly whatever happens in the upcoming "City of Blood," the penultimate episode of the season and widely assumed to be Brother Blood-centric, will almost certainly revolve around how the election plays out. Slade's original plan was to make Blood, whom he could control, the mayor...but now he has Moira under his thumb, too. It may all come down to what Slade thinks an hurt Oliver more, which at this point isn't totally clear.
Birds of Prey It seems likely we'll see some kind of build-up to something more closely resembling a recognizable Birds of Prey in next week's episode, "Birds of Prey." Here, it's just Canary and Huntress, apparently in opposition to each other. But with that title, with Marc Guggenheim having said of Felicity as the group's Oracle "hopefully we'll get there eventually" and the aforementioned chance of a change in professional capacity forSara Lance, could we see these two set up to pair up by the end of the season? Certainly it would be an interesting odd couple, in any case.
Deathstroke will be back This one's kind of obvious, really; it's not like they can actually kill Slade Wilson. Besides the fact that he's one of DC's most iconic villains, Manu Bennett has been killing it on Arrow and it would be foolhardy to write him out. That said, the next time he comes back, one of two things has to happen: In order to up his game from this season, he has to have a truly massive plot. If that's what it boils down to, maybe shelving him (in the present day, at least) for at least a season wouldn't be a bad idea; or... He could be conscripted into the Suicide Squad, allowing for him to periodically turn up in the show but (at least for now) keeping his threat manageable. This could also give us the "forced to work together" variation in a later season.
