Arrow 100th Celebration: The Best Episodes to Date

3.08: “The Brave and the Bold”

Now that Barry Allen is a full-fledged superhero in Central City, the first season Flash series crosses over with the third season Arrow in what will become an annual tradition. This was a concentrated combination of the two shows to really seal the concept that they share a universe. This closing hour of the two-part event is the better of the two, even though it is oddly placed in the narrative of Arrow‘s season. It does offer a tantalizing comparison between Oliver’s methods as a hero and Barry’s own instincts, aiding the audience in the clear delineation between each show’s basic worldview: Arrow is the dark, The Flash is the light. What really works, aside from all the fun of seeing these two in action together against an effective and far from corny Captain Boomerang, is that Barry is actually able to assist in Oliver’s identity crisis that formed the third season.

3.16: “The Offer”

Ra’s al Ghul makes Oliver an offer to take over the League in his place. He explains that Oliver can do with the assassins as he will once he is in power, potentially using the organization for good. Ra’s releases Diggle and Malcolm Merlyn from captivity as a sign of good faith, and Oliver and the two return to Starling City to everyone’s surprise. Oliver lets Nyssa go to return to her father and seriously considers Ra’s offer, which shocks Diggle. Oliver bares his thoughts to Felicity, who tells him he needs to find the reason why he continues to fight like the rest of them have. Nyssa is outraged to find that her father offered Oliver control of the League over her and she announces she won’t stand for it. He orders for her to leave and she returns to Starling to help Laurel and find new meaning in her life. Oliver tells Maseo that he is declining the offer. In retaliation, Ra’s dresses as the Arrow and begins killing people in the city.

3.17: “Suicidal Tendencies”

Diggle and Lyla get remarried and find themselves on another assignment for Amanda Waller with her Suicide Squad, this time featuring the two of them, Deadshot, and crazed Arrow stalker Carrie Cutter, aka Cupid. After League of Assassins head Ra’s al Ghul convinces the city that the Arrow has returned to his killing ways, tech millionaire Ray Palmer joins the mayor and police in hunting the vigilante. Palmer in his A.T.O.M. discovers that Oliver is the Arrow and confronts Felicity about it. Oliver has the team search for League members dressed as the Arrow running about town. Oliver’s old colleague Maseo Yamashiro, working for the League, tries to convince Oliver to accept Ra’s terms. Oliver has to convince Ray he is not a killer anymore. Meanwhile, the Suicide Squad finds out their mission to rescue a senator and hostages held in a hospital in Kasnia is actually a paid stunt by the senator to boost his public profile to run for president. Pinned down and looking to escape the building rigged to explode, Deadshot stays behind to offer cover and sacrifice himself to allow them to get free. Back home, Lyla quits ARGUS. Ray asks Felicity to be his partner in his crime fighting endeavor. And for the first time in the series, the flashbacks are entirely devoted to a villain, offering the heartbreaking story of Floyd Lawton’s struggle with PTSD that lost him his wife and daughter and eventually led to him as a hired assassin soon to be known as Deadshot.

3.18: “Public Enemy”

A part of the mini-arc of Oliver being presented with Ra’s al Ghul’s offer and then having every part of his life taken from him to get him to say yes is the strongest distillation of their conflict. The potential of losing his sister later on will be the most affecting, but this hour features the complete collapse of everything Oliver had devoted his life to after surviving the island and Amanda Waller and the Russian mob. Most of Team Arrow’s work had been undone by Brick during his stab at becoming the big boss of Glades, but here Ra’s turns the public, and more important Quentin Lance and the police, against the Arrow. It’s hard to quite know when exactly Oliver and Malcolm cooked up their plan to get Oliver inside the League to take down Ra’s, but it has to be heartwrenching to witness the death of his crusade, even if he wasn’t sure he wanted to continue on with it. Quentin now knowing the truth about Sara and learning that Oliver is, indeed, the Hood as he’d originally suspected back in Season 1, he tears into taking down the vigilante with an impressive fervor that fuels the danger encroaching on Oliver at every turn. When he turns himself in, rather than the usual martyr complex he usually assumes, Oliver is genuinely left with no other options. So effective is al Ghul’s plan and so effective is the hour. And then Roy shows up … as the Arrow!

3.19: “Broken Arrow”

Roy Harper allows himself to be arrested as the Arrow to protect Oliver, even though Lance knows the truth. A metahuman attacks the city, and Oliver and Felicity employ Ray as the A.T.O.M. to take him down. Ray gets his ass handed to him and his confidence is shaken. Eventually, Oliver controls the A.T.O.M. suit with Ray in it to fight the meta, but when the link fails, Ray has to summon his own strength and win the battle himself. Roy is shipped off to Iron Heights Penitentiary, where he is apparently shivved and killed by another inmate. Oliver is devastated by the news, until the others reveal to him that it was all a plan by Roy to “kill” the Arrow and allow Oliver to carry on. Roy Harper is now believed dead and he has to leave town and go on the lam to avoid anyone finding out the truth. Ra’s al Ghul confronts Thea at her loft and mortally injures her to convince Oliver to accept his offer.

Fans voted Episode 3.20: “The Fallen” as their favorite episode of the season in the 2015 GreenArrowTV Awards.

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