Arrow season 8, episode 7 review: Purgatory

“The island where they found me, it’s Mandarin, for Purgatory.” Spoilers for Arrow season 8, episode 7 follow.

Team Arrow is brought to Lian Yu to finish one final task for Mar Novu to hopefully save the multiverse in the upcoming crisis.

When Renee, Dinah, and Roy are shot out of the sky above the island though, the team must set out to find them and the plutonium they were carrying.

Return to purgatory

This is where it begins to end, back where everything all began. One final mission before the upcoming Crisis begins. It’s quite poetic in a way. Oliver started his journey alone on this island and now he’s returned, but with his family to aid him along his way. Not only is Team Arrow on the island with him, but somehow, Yao Fei has returned from the dead.

By bringing Yao Fei back, this episode ties into the first season incredibly well. Through Yao Fei’s eyes, we get to see how much Oliver has grown, but how similar he was to his first year on the island. Even though Oliver has been training others for years, there are still things he can learn.

There’s a lot of emotion associated simply with the return to Lian Yu, but having his new family accompany him and finding his old mentor alive is the definition of poetic in this show. This episode feels like a celebration of the entirety of the show that also attempts to move forward narratively, which is does in a very successful way. Sure, there are some contrivances that are present to extend the conflict, but that doesn’t mean it’s not an entertaining episode to watch.

The episode has a mission that sets out to return Oliver to his roots while pushing forward the narrative of the season, as well as its respective character arcs.

Family drama galore

For most of the season, the Queen family has held the majority of the drama for the season, and that’s still the case in this episode, but the Diggle family join in as well. There is plenty of surface level drama that this episode starts out with, but as it moves on, the drama goes much deeper.

On the Queen side of the aisle, Oliver and Mia continue to be at odds because of Oliver’s admission that he’s going to die and can’t change his fate. Unsurprisingly, this angers Mia in a way that has been very consistent with her character over the past two seasons.

More from Arrowverse

• The 9 best (and 8 worst) Arrowverse characters
• 27 best fighters in the Arrowverse, ranked
• All 8 Black Canary actresses ranked from worst to best
• 11 things nobody wants to admit about the Arrowverse
• The 7 best (and 6 worst) Arrowverse villains

By the time she almost gives into this anger, William and her have an extremely emotional heart-to-heart that we haven’t really had with the two this season. It’s a perfect interaction for the two to have and it’s cathartic for both the characters and us as the audience. By the end of the episode though, Oliver has conversations with both William and Mia that allows forgiveness and the characters to truly bond.

The Diggle family on the other hand doesn’t really get as deep of a dive. There’s some squabbling between John and Lyla over her lies about working with the Monitor, but there’s not much more than that. John’s arc in this episode comes from Roy’s injury and amputation of his arm. This leads to a relatively cliché “blames himself” conversation with Roy, but thanks to an excellent performance by Colton Haynes, it’s effective.

The fire rises

Edward Fyers and Bill Wintergreen have returned from the dead as well. Last seen all the way back in Season 1 as the first real villains of the show, it was a genuine surprise to see them return. It really shouldn’t be given the shocking things that have already occurred in this season, but it still was.

There’s not much really done with these two returning villains other than giving Oliver a blast from the past, but it’s better to use these two than random goons. Those random goons are still present in this episode but knowing that there’s a known quantity behind their masks makes it a bit more interesting. Not incredibly interesting, but more than it would’ve been otherwise.

Arrow sets the stage for Crisis on Infinite Earths by effectively returning back to the roots of the show.