Arrow S2 E23 - 'Unthinkable' Review

Whatever It Takes.
Arrow season 2 reached its dramatic conclusion in undoubtedly one of the best Arrowverse episodes ever.
The episode was relentless from the start. The team healed Roy, who joined the Arrow in an tight fight scene in the clock tower. You know it's going to be a great episode when within 5 minutes, Team Arrow have zip-lined out of a clock tower whilst Lyla, hanging off the side of a helicopter, has fired a rocket launcher into said tower to destroy a group of mirakuru soldiers. What an entrance!
We then got a great suiting up scene, where Roy got his mask and the League of Assassins joined forces with Team Arrow. Their subsequent battle against Deathstroke, Ravager and his army was well choreographed and claustrophobic, albeit a bit too short. Ravager's execution also felt rushed, as the character had little time to develop post-rebirth.
The real battle took place later in the tunnel, as the Arrow marched to war alongside Roy (who has now become Arsenal), the Canary, Nyssa Al-Ghul, Quentin and the League of Assassins. What followed was one of the best fight scenes I have witnessed in television, with some truly epic moments for all of our heroes as they charged the Mirakuru army. It felt like the culmination of two seasons worth of story-telling and the show-runners pulled it off admirably.
The final battle between the Arrow and Deathstroke was similarly bad-ass, as it linked their fights past and present to create a thrilling sequence in which we saw how far Oliver has come in his time since the island. Ollie goes on to lock Slade in isolation on Lian Yu, a very cool twist and one which allowed the two men to share a parting conversation in which Oliver expressed his thanks for Slade changing him into a hero. This scene was awesome and tied up the season with a bow. The rivalry between the two men felt rooted in history and was great - I genuinely don't think I can see any villain taking Deathstroke's mantel.
Elsewhere, Thea went through an emotional arc as she realised Roy had been lying to her (along with everyone else in her life) and thus left Starling with Malcolm. This development felt natural and it was great to see Thea moving on in her life after her story-line had felt fairly static this season alongside Roy's turbulent arc.
We also were treated to Olicity finally (almost) coming to be, as Oliver told Felicity he loves her as part of his plan to trap Deathstroke. I liked this idea as for once, it seems, Oliver managed to out-think his former brother. The only other sub-plot in the episode was Diggle and Lyle releasing Task Force X to force Waller to call off the missile attack. It was a fun distraction with some cool cameos, but pretty much served as a break from the main action.
The end brought a multitude of revelations, as we learned that the Canary has returned to Nanda Parbat, Quentin has fallen ill due to the injuries he has sustained, Lyla is pregnant with Diggle's child and in the flashbacks Oliver is whisked to Hong Kong by Amanda Waller. This ending left plenty of mysteries dangling ready for next season to pick up on.
Overall, this final episode was simply amazing. It brought together all of the players introduced thus far in the series and utilised each excellently, tying up unresolved threads whilst teasing future conflict to come. It was truly the perfect finale and I sums up just why this season was always my favourite.

STARRING: Deathstroke, Ravager, The Canary, Nyssa Al-Ghul, The Dark Archer

AWESOME MOMENTS:

• The ENTIRE episode
• Great 'Til death do us part' gag
• Slade donning his mask in the flashback fight was foreboding of his destiny
• Glad Oliver finally realised what a bad character Laurel is and chose to save the city over her ("City comes first"). Way to go Ollie!
• "He took the wrong woman"
• Diggle's interactions with Deadshot were great and I'm glad the character was able to return in the finale!
• In the flashbacks, Ollie falling face-to-face against the Deathstroke mask was a very cool shot!
• "You helped me become a hero Slade"
• "I KEEP MY PROMISES!!" - here's hoping we get to see more of the merc in the future

EASTER EGGS:

- One of the criminals that Diggle & Lyla break out of ARGUS's prison (in addition to Deadshot) is DC Supervillan, Torque, an enemy of Nightwing

- When leaving the island at the end of the episode, Diggle refers to Slade's new prison as "Argus's Super Max." Super Max was the name of a long-in-development script by David Goyer which would have seen Green Arrow attempting to escape from a prison made for supervillains after being placed there for a crime he didn't commit. The movie would've seen cameos from several DC villains as inmates of the prison

- One of the police officers mentions that there are police stationed at Meltzer Avenue.  Brad Meltzer is a novelist and occasional comic book writer.  Meltzer wrote a six issue run on Green Arrow which pitted a recently resurrected Green Arrow against Solomon Grundy.  He also wrote Identity Crisis, which introduced the Green Arrow/Deathstroke rivalry, as well as a run on Justice League of America that saw Roy Harper take up the "Red Arrow" nickname

- An ARGUS tech tells Waller that the drone strike is 52 minutes from Starling City.  It wouldn't be an episode of Arrow without a reference to DC's favorite number

- The ARGUS tech manning the drone is played by Allison Riley, who previously played an ARGUS tech officer in "Suicide Squad"

- Slade's army heads towards the Giordano Tunnel to escape Starling City.  Dick Giordano is a well-known DC editor and inker from the 1970s and 1980s.  He notably inked Neal Adams' pencils on the Green Lantern/Green Arrow series.  He also inked George Perez's pencils in the continuity rebooting Crisis on Infinite Earth series, and served as DC's executive editor during that time.  

- Lyla and Diggle break into ARGUS's headquarters through an entrance marked "LEVEL 7 SECURITY".  This might be a little nod towards rival comic book show Marvel's Agents of SHIELD, which features "Level 7" as one of its many buzz-phrases

- Slade's army takes down ARGUS's Easy Company in the Giordano Tunnel. Easy Company has been the subject of several war comics dating back to the late 1950s.  Easy Company is an American WWII battalion typically led in the field by Sergeant Frank Rock.  Most of Rock and Easy Company's adventures were drawn by industry legend Joe Kubert.  It should be noted that, after World War II, Rock went on to become one of the Joint Chiefs of Staff's for Lex Luthor's presidential administration, and also was involved with the Suicide Squad at one point. Waller mentions that Easy Company is led by Sergeant Gomez during their ill-fated battle with Slade's army.  Gomez is named after Suzanne Gomez, a CW publicist who works on Arrow publicity and marketing.  

- Deadshot refers to Amanda Waller as "The Wall" while Diggle and Lyla are breaking them out of their cells. Waller is often derogatorily referred to as The Wall by various characters in the comics. 

- When Diggle frees Deadshot, he also frees several other prisoners, one of which is played by Michael Adamthwaite. Interestingly, Adamthwaite is listed as playing Torque in the episode.  In the comics, Torque was a corrupt Bludhaven cop and enemy of Nightwing, who has his neck snapped by the supervillain Blockbuster.  Thanks to a breakthrough in medical technology, Torque survived, although his head faced the wrong direction.  Afterwards, Torque waged a gang war in Bludhaven in an attempt to gain revenge against those who wronged him. Adamthwaite, the actor who plays Torque, is a pretty prolific voice actor with a number of different credits to his name.  He voiced Colossus in X-Men: Evolution, Justin Hammer in Iron Man: Armored Adventures, and Namor in the Fantastic Four movies.  He also played Her'ak in Stargate SG-1.

- Viv Leacock plays the other prisoner who Diggle and Lyla frees, who is named Raven in the credits.  While there's a well-known Teen Titan named Raven, that character is female, and Leacock is male, so I doubt that's who he is.  There are also several one-off villains named Raven, including an enemy of Robin, so maybe he's named after one of them

- The apartment Oliver wakes up in Hong Kong is actually a rejiggered version of Laurel's apartment set

RATING: 9.5/10