Arrow Review- "Suicide Squad"

Diggle is happy his squad consists of Black Dynamite, Kano, and that "one dude from Firefly."

Warning: The following review contains a quiver full of spoilers.  Read at your own risk.

Seeing the previews for this week's episode of Arrow excited me.  The "Suicide Squad" was going to be formed, and this is another small step forward into merging the Arrow universe with the overall DC comic universe.  So, there's no way the episode could have been bad, right?  Wrong.  What we get is a Diggle episode, with a Diggle flashback, and brief moments of the Squad worked in...not to mention a brief, overly pouty, Oliver Queen story thread.

Diggle gets his team.  Diggle does not really want this team.  Diggle hesitantly accepts the team.  One team member is poorly killed off-screen, showing that they need to continue to take orders from Waller and do their job.  This is interlaced with flashbacks of Diggle in the war, protecting a high-value target, existing only for the sole purpose of letting the audience know who the high-value target is, while strengthening the relationship we have with Diggle and his ex-wife.  There were a few scenes where Ollie is running around, looking and acting like a bratty teenager, wanting to find Slade Wilson before anybody is hurt.  But forget the stuff that even matters for the plot progression of the show, let's go back to Diggle and his ragtag group of felons!

After getting 3/4 of the way through the episode, I realized this is less Arrow, and more "24."  The only standout in the latter portion of this episode is Deadshot, who Diggle has to coerce to leave with him with the whole "you got a kid" play as a predator is rapidly approaching to destroy the house.  Even the reveal at the end of the episode is weak; Waller actually mentions the name "Deathstroke" at the end of the show and the camera pans in, after Waller explains that he's been leaving a trail of death behind him.  Didn't we pretty much already know this, though?  Was this supposed to come as a surprise and serve as a cliffhanger?

All the negativity out of the way, that being said, there were a couple of standout moments in the episode.  First of all, props for the Harley Quinn cameo.  That made me think of endless possibilities in which the story can progress in the near future if she is, indeed, introduced into the universe.  Diggle has a nice line near the end of the episode that shows his morality conflict: "...the guy that killed my brother has more character than the woman who is supposed to be protecting the world."  What is really considered "good" and what is "evil?"  I don't know.  Let's hope Diggle doesn't have an existential crisis.

Overall, it was a very by-the-book generic episode.  It felt wholly out-of-place with the progression of the season, and felt quite risky to pull this during the much anticipated Suicide Squad episode.  While it is nice to get a little bit of background on Diggle, and give some screen time to the supporting cast, I think viewers are much more interested in Ollie vs. Slade at this point in the season.  Sorry Diggle, your time to shine was nothing more than mediocre.

Overall Rating:

6/10

 (6 out of 10)