Arrow Season 2.5 - #11 Review


Oliver Queen Is Dead.
Caleb Green and Oliver Queen finally have their dramatic showdown in this issue, which consisted of two stories as per usual; 'Home' featured both Ollie and Malcolm experiencing unwanted guests in their houses, whilst 'Recompense' showed the epic battle between Green and Queen as a burning mansion collapses around them.
'Home' is more of a set-up episode for this confrontation. Laurel is kidnapped and makes a great joke about how often she gets broken into, which has been a common trope and inadvertent running gag throughout the first two seasons. This then leads to a war of the words between Ollie and Green, which is fairly standard villain victory talk which leaves Green feeling undeveloped and two dimensional. The best part of this chapter was seeing Malcolm come under threat from the League, which again sets up the conflicts that will play out in Arrow season 3.
The follow up chapter, 'Recompense', depicts the set-piece showdown between Oliver and Green as the Queen mansion burns. It is a cool sequence that I found reminiscent of Batman Begins, although it was weird how Green's face burned in a similar way to Two-Face. Speaking of Batman references, I absolutely LOVED Green referencing Arkham Asylum during his dramatic speech - IT EXISTS IN THE ARROWVERSE!! The fight itself was the most important aspect however and it was very cool. Laurel stepped in to save the day, foreshadowing her future role in Team Arrow, whilst the cliff-hanger saw a dying Green claim that Oliver was dead... although of course he stars in 6 more seasons of Arrow so clearly he's still alive.
Overall, the penultimate issue of Arrow Season 2.5 is another solid entry in the franchise, although due to the week villain in the form of Caleb Green it falls short of greatness.

 STARRING: The Dark Archer

 RATING: 8.2/10

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