Arrow season 8, episode 4 review: Present Tense

“We make our own hope.” Spoilers for Arrow season 8, episode 4 follow.

Team Arrow has been reunited in the most abrupt way possible, and now Team Arrow 2040 is part of the present.

Not only did Mia, Connor, and William get pulled back to the present, the Deathstroke gang seemingly has as well.

2040 meets the present

Wow, that opening scene. Picking up directly from the end from last episode, every bit of emotion hits hard immediately here. Several of the scenes within the first ten minutes of this episode are tearjerkers. Whether it be Mia, William, and Oliver’s first reaction to seeing each other, Connor’s reaction to Diggle and Diggle’s subsequent lack of reaction, or William and Oliver actually being able to talk and joke, leading to William coming out to him. All of these pull at the heartstrings and each actor, especially Stephen Amell and Ben Lewis, did a remarkable job here.

Honestly, no one was probably expecting to see any of the cast from the flash-forwards to interact with any of the cast from the present outside of who has already been shown to be alive in the future. Certainly not in the way that it’s currently happening. Because of that, the episode is genuinely surprising whenever the two teams interact with one another because they both seem to be walking on eggshells, but for different reasons.

As the episode progresses, and each character has their own time to deal with this reality, the emotional stakes continue to be raised. Eventually, what the episode boils down to is the question “What can you do to change the future?” and the answer to that differs for each character creating some very complex emotional journeys for very nearly every character in this episode.

Deathstroke(s) have returned

What is very much a homage to Season 2 of Arrow, Deathstroke has returned to Star City, this time in the form of Grant Wilson. Much like Joseph David-Jones’ Connor Hawke, Grant is being reprised by Jamie Andrew Cutler who previously appeared as the character in Legends of Tomorrow. Where this differs from Grant’s previous appearance in the Arrowverse is that he is now tied directly into the main timeline of Earth-1. He’s both a homage and a key story element to how Star City ends up how it appears in 2040 on the show.

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Where the homage falls flat though is that the Deathstroke gang, or Grant for that matter, show up very much at all in this episode. Unlike Slade or even JJ, they aren’t that interesting of group presented in this episode and subsequently, their menace doesn’t quite feel earned or effective. This is easily the most disappointing aspect of the season in what is otherwise the best episode of this final season so far.

To hide the future

In a concerted effort to protect the present, the future Team Arrow decides to keep the future a secret. For a gut decision as a viewer, it’s hard to not actively question this decision because it feels like it would be prudent to tell the present Team Arrow the truth, but in a story context, it makes sense. It may be something done to artificially add drama, much like what has been done in previous, but given time travel is involved, it makes sense why they don’t.

When the truth comes out though, that’s when everything hits the fan. Tempers flare and is really where some characters, such as Diggle, Connor, and Rene, who haven’t gotten as much play this season, great emotional moments. Mia as well, once everything’s out in the open, lets loose on Oliver in a way that very much feels deserved, yet undeserved at the same time. It’s easy to understand both Oliver and Mia, and that makes their interactions throughout the episode all the more heartbreaking.

Arrow has its best episode of its final season so far due to the melding of the two timelines, even though it’s lacking in the villain department.