This episode of Arrow was the culmination of a three part season finale that I can't wait to watch back to back in the same sitting. It started with an epic "Previously On" montage showing Oliver Queen's entire history with Slade Wilson.
The Island flashback sequences with their confrontation on the Amazo was a good parallel with the modern story arc in Starling City, especially when they flashed back and forth between the fight scenes themselves. The end of it (and last scene of the episode) wasn't exactly what I expected, with Oliver waking up in Hong Kong under the supervision of Amanda Waller. I figured they would do more with him and Anatoli, but they still have 3 more seasons worth of flashback material if they follow the pattern they have been.
Back in Starling City, they still managed to follow 4 different plots through most of the episode. I knew Thea didn't kill Malcolm with her shots at the end of the last episode, but I like that they actually did have her shoot him rather than the trope of her actually shooting someone behind him. Nice to have another scene with her and Roy, though I kind of expected her to find the mask when they were making out instead of finding something in his house. It's clear they're planning on taking her to a dark place next season and it'll be interesting to see how that progresses (plus more John Barrowman).
The Lance side of the Starling City plot started pretty much as expected, but took a couple interesting twists toward the end. It made sense that Sara would call in Nyssa based on what she knew was coming, though I didn't expect the cost of her help to take the form it did. And after I heard that Sara would have to rejoin the League in exchange for their help, that added to my fear that she was going to get killed off. Nyssa was a bad-ass, which impressed me, even though it resulted in Isabel dying in a far more anticlimactic way than I expected. I liked Sara giving Laurel her Canary jacket, hinting at her future. It was capped off by Quentin showing that he's at least a bit genre savvy by saying it better not give Laurel any ideas. And then Quentin having a heart attack or something completely out of nowhere. I hope they don't kill him off, because he has been one of my favorite characters on the show.
I loved how Lyla made her entrance, saving everyone with a rocket into the clocktower (which I hope wasn't a way for them to write off that set for next season). She pulled Diggle off into his plot to slow Waller down enough for the rest of the team to stop Slade. I knew Deadshot would show up, but I hoped to see other members of the Suicide Squad (and maybe another Harley Quinn tease). There wasn't all that much to the story here except for Dig finding out he's going to be a father. With Roy back up and active, I'm kind of hoping this will result in Dig's role in the team changing to more of an investigator as Roy starts serving as the Arrow's sidekick in the field.
Now on to Oliver's side of the story. Most of this was his interaction with the other characters and their plots. It made sense for him to be wary of Nyssa's help, especially since her advice ran contrary to the man he's trying to become. And when Quentin offered the same advice and was yelling at him that he needed to save Laurel, I half expected him to lower his hood and reveal his identity to prove that it was a difficult decision for him. I figured that his revelation of his love for Felicity was a way of luring Slade into a trap, but I had forgotten the bugs that were planted at the mansion. I just figured it was a way for their final battle to be there to send that set out with a bang. Felicity being the one to cure Slade was a great twist that I didn't see coming. I'm not sure how much I like the idea of them leaving Slade in an Argus prison. With Waller presumably still in charge of Argus, the idea of adding Deathstroke to the Suicide Squad seems to be far too tempting for her to resist.
Excellent episode with enough twists to keep me guessing.
Probably not going to go into as much detail on this one since the Arrow one took longer than I expected.
Fitz and Simmons didn't get as much time as I would have thought in this episode with it being the finale. It was great that they teamed up to figure out a way to save themselves from their difficult situation (though if they had taken a little longer, they might not have had to go for a swim. I am worried about what they're going to do with Fitz based on not seeing him at the end of the episode with Simmons and Life Model Decoy Patton Oswalt. The rescue scene was pretty good and the scene after that with Fury telling Simmons what was going on was probably the most tender moment we've seen with Fury in the entire franchise.
The team infiltrating the Cybertek (I keep wanting to write Cyberdyne, but that's not right) worked for me. Nice to see a couple more of Tripp's Howling Commandos gadgets. After they got into the base, I kind of forgot that May/Skye and Coulson/Tripp were in the same place. Skye and May seemed to get to where they needed to be a bit too easily, but I suppose that's the advantage of not going in in a big armored vehicle. It's lucky the "incentive program" was on-site, but I suppose that was what needed to happen to move the story forward. It was great to see May get her payback for Ward's betrayal and there were some great one-liners from May during the fight.
Coulson and Fury fighting Garrett was the true highlight of the show for me. Great banter among all the characters ("You didn't tell me he'd gone this crazy.") and the return of the Coulson Special from the Avengers with nice callbacks. I called Mike being the one to kill Garrett, and I was sort of right, though I cracked up at Coulson just casually disintegrating him after his supervillain speech about getting his revenge. I really liked Bill Paxton's portrayal of crazy Garrett in this episode, and kind of hoped he would come back from time to time, but this was a fitting end.
I don't think Mike needs to atone any more for what he's done, but I like how this season was basically an origin story for Deathlok and wonder if they're going to do the same thing with doing an origin story for another lower-tier superhero over the course of next season as well.
Fury making Coulson the new director of SHIELD made a certain amount of sense to prevent them from having to rename the show, though I am concerned that it will result in them moving him to more of a General Hammond role next season, staying on the base while May takes the team out into the field. As I mentioned above, I'm pretty sure the Koenigs are actually Life Model Decoys of some sort. Their dialog was just too similar to be a coincidence. I would be OK with him continuing to be at least a recurring character next season. There wasn't as much to set up for next season as on Arrow, but there was still a bit.
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