Slade Wilson will always be the best villain in Arrow for me.

Even so, I appreciated the parallels between the two characters in the present-day with their history. Disappointingly though, this also led to less screentime for Slade Wilson than I would have liked. Thankfully (or not-so-thankfully) Arrow chose to spend an inordinate amount of time this season with heavy-handed dialogue and symbolism about identity and darkness, so by the time we got to 'Lian Yu,' there was nothing much left to say. Interestingly enough, while we spend a lot of time with Oliver in this week's finale, we don't actually spend a lot of time ON him. Nevertheless, I bought was Stephen Amell was selling because his desperation to save his son was palpable. I guess that the problem is so many of us took issue with the baby mama drama plot that it lost any and all of its potential. He seems affectionate enough around the kid, but until he mentions him by name, sometimes I legitimately forget that Oliver even HAS a son. So it's kind of problematic that the entire emotional poignancy of the scene at the end was carried by Oliver's relationship with William. We had one scene of Oliver playing with his son, but that's about it.

The one complaint that I have in regards to the whole Oliver/William storyline was that we never got the chance to really explore what Oliver was like as a father. Oliver had to watch Robert die out of love he had to watch Adrian Chase die because of evil. So in order to execute his master plan of taking away everything Oliver loves, Adrian takes his own life. In the end, Adrian knows that Oliver won't break - he's been changed by the love of his friends and family, and he refuses to kill him because of that. But what was really poignant to me was the parallelism between the suicide of Robert Queen and the suicide of Adrian Chase. At the episode's end, Oliver makes a sacrifice for William - he chooses saving his son over saving his friends and family who are still trapped on the island. There are some really incredible parallels here between Robert and Oliver's relationship.įor starters, Robert Queen killed himself to atone for what he did but also give Oliver the chance at life. Oliver has decided that his legacy is going to be one of a passionate, caring, self-sacrificing father. Everyone who makes a major decision in this episode, save for Adrian Chase, has been changed they're not the same people they were when they first landed on the island.

But what is so significant is that these people have changed: Oliver, Slade, Malcolm, etc. 'Lian Yu' focuses pretty heavily on the idea that parents leave behind legacies for their children - some of those legacies involve how the parent has lived and acted their entire life some of those legacies are based on one decision. Oliver has spent this season trying to figure out the kind of legacy he'll leave behind.

Deathstroke and arrow again in lian yu