Arrow season 7, episode 22 review: You Have Saved This City

“I want to help her redeem herself.” Spoilers for Arrow season 7, episode 22 follow.

After The Ninth Circle’s attack on the SCPD, Team Arrow is now on the run and fugitives in their own city. Now they have to fight both the cops and The Ninth Circle to stop Emiko.

In the future, William and Rene are captured and Mia’s team is on the run from an army of Archer enhanced soldiers.

Team Arrow vs. The SCPD

Now that Emiko has effectively killed any semblance of trust and teamwork that Team Arrow has spent the entirety of the season building, the team has to work even harder to stop The Ninth Circle. They’re fighting on two fronts now, with even certain citizens not listening to them or trusting them.

While some of this great idea is good in execution, the rest of it feels very rushed, mainly with how the public views the team. The part that really matters though, Emiko’s plan, while very fast-paced, feels very effective in its execution and there’s one shot of a corpse toward the beginning of the episode that is particularly brutal. It does a great job of conveying the threat that Emiko contains and provides a bit of shock value that feels more befitting of a show on HBO than the CW.

Emiko’s plan comes down to Oliver confronting Emiko though, which is the true endgame of the season. The hate and anger that has been boiling under the surface for both the characters comes to the surface here in a very familiar way. Oliver treats Emiko much like he did Thea in earlier seasons, which makes it consistent for his character, but it feels like a bit of a retread for the character dynamic. Luckily the emotion here is heightened enough to make that familiarity mostly forgivable. It’s too bad that they killed Emiko in a bit of an unsatisfying way because there was plenty of possibility moving forward. Her last scene with Oliver does set-up why Felicity is leaving the show in a sensible way though.

Redemption is the key

Black Siren and Curtis are back in the picture with this episode as well. There’s also a surprise arrival that joins Team Arrow here in Bronze Tiger as well. Much of this season has been about redemption of the many characters on this show, and this episode is where that theme comes to a head. If Black Siren and Bronze Tiger can turn to the side of the angels, then why can’t Emiko.

There’s the argument that while Black Siren and Bronze Tiger are able to find redemption because they weren’t terrorists like Emiko though. Siren and Tiger have done some awful things on this show, but they’ve never tried to destroy an entire city, except that time when Siren was helping Ricardo Diaz. If these two had such a hard time turning to light, even though Tiger hasn’t really had the full arc showing his turn, why should Emiko be allowed to?

The thing is though, Oliver was a serial killer in the first season and he became a hero. Redemption is not something that is simply given, rather it’s something worked toward, which is why Oliver wants to give Emiko that chance to grow and “break the cycle.” It’s a theme that’s been present for most of the season and this episode does a really solid job bringing the theme mostly full circle, even if some of the execution is done in the best way.

The Archer Quest

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In the future, just as in the present, the team is attempting to stop a takeover of the city, just a different form of takeover. Now that Archer, a big brother type of program created by Felicity in the present, is in the hands of a fascist corporation, there’s a threat that is nearly impossible to take down for the team. The soldiers can predict they’re moves with Archer and the team is vastly outnumbered.

While the flash-forwards haven’t been the full focus of the season, whenever they’ve appeared, they’ve consistently been great. That is again very much the case with this episode. Mia and William have anchored this entire storyline and the amount of emotion that this episode is able to pull from those two characters alone is fantastic. They’ve easily become two of the best characters on the show this season.

The only thing bad about this part of the episode is that the ending feels a bit rushed compared to how quickly the story has moved throughout the rest of the season. In fact, much of this episode feels incredibly fast-paced to the point of much of it feeling rushed and dwelling on certain emotional beats.

Despite some pacing hiccups and familiar elements, Arrow ends its seventh season on an emotional high note.