The CW's Arrow - Episode 2.16 Suicide Squad
Following Slade's return, Oliver focuses all his energy on preparing for battle. Sarah tries to help but Oliver pushes her away. Diggle is recruited by Amanda Waller to stop a warlord he knew from his time in Afghanistan but he's not prepared when he meets the rest of the team. When the mission takes a dangerous turn, Diggle is forced to make a difficult decision.
It's been awhile since we've had a good Diggle episode. Earlier in this season, we got one when he and the team went to Russia to track Deadshot. Since then, he has just been a side piece laying low in the background as major developments were happening at the core of the show. Because those developments were so good, it didn't let the lack of Diggle feel that noticeable. "Suicide Squad" gives him almost the entire hour to go off and have his own adventure that's not tied into Oliver. It's an odd choice for sure given its placement in the season. The last two episodes established the immediate threat of Slade Wilson to Oliver and everyone he cares about in Starling City. And then, the show gives us an episodic story about Diggle. Arrow wanted to make the Slade threat apparent to everyone. It's much more satisfying seeing Oliver know who he's up against instead of it just being some shadowy figure to him. But the show also kinda has to wait until the finale until the big confrontation between the two characters. So in the meantime we're going to get stories like this one.And that's perfectly fine as long as they have lots of action and are entertaining. "Suicide Squad" sets up the unit famous in the DC Comics story with Amanda Waller bringing Diggle, Lyla, Deadshot, Bronze Tiger and Shrapnel together for this task. It's an intriguing idea to take some of these villainous characters that Oliver and Diggle have helped put away and have them working together. Of course, the bulk of the plot further developments the Diggle-Deadshot relationship because they have a shared history together. In the process, it does sideline Bronze Tiger and Shrapnel a lot - and then, just willfully kills Shrapnel like it doesn't mean a thing. The reveal of what Amanda's true plan was all along was a nice twist. It adds a nice layer of whether or not we should see this government agency A.R.G.U.S. as good or bad. That duality is brought up a lot throughout the hour and people get to talk about how they live in the shades of grey - which is a pretty repetitive concept in this medium that has grown very tiresome as of late.
And then, there was the Oliver story which was basically just tasked to be a placeholder between the Diggle stuff. We know that Oliver is going to be better off fighting Slade with Sara by his side. And yet, he goes through this anguish of trying to get things done and outmaneuver Slade so his loved ones don't get put in harms way. It's a story I believe the show has done before. The imagery of the face with an arrow through his right eye was powerful as was the concluding moment that Oliver knows Amanda Waller and can rely on her for help with Slade. That tied his story thematically into the main plot so much better than it had any right to do. Still a fun twist.
Some more thoughts:
- "Suicide Squad" was written by Keto Shimizu & Bryan Q. Miller and directed by Larry Teng.
- It was also a nice change of pace for the flashback stuff to be Diggle-centric as well. Sure, they were completely unnecessary but if they had to be in this episode that's how I would have wanted them done.
- Now, Moira is trying to save the town's swimming pools or something. I really wasn't listening to that announcement.
- But such a strange transition that news reporter made moving between those two stories.
- Laurel spending a lot of her time in Oliver's nightclub doesn't seem like the smartest move to make if she is trying to stay sober, right?
