Arrow S2x14 “Time of Death”

After the three-week break due to the Winter Olympics, it’s easy to forget just how good a show like Arrow is capable of being, and it demonstrated it here with arguably another absolutely stellar episode that featured another addition to Oliver’s rogues gallery, the Clock King, in a Monster of the Week episode that showed a glimpse of things to come, and effectively making Sara Lance one of the mainstays in the Arrow cast. But this episode was far from about Sara – it was instead a massive episode for Felicity and the other Lance daughter, Laurel. The show has been incredibly inconsistent on its handling of Laurel so far and it was great to see her character develop over the course of Time of Death, and it was good to see that they didn’t drag out the subplot of her falling out with the Lance Family forever. Hopefully now Laurel can only get better from here – and it’ll be interesting to see how her relationship with Oliver and the other main characters improves.

The Clock King may yet be another  villain of the week, but as things stand, he’s one of the more memorable ones and I for one would welcome another appearance by the character. His main role in the episode was handled effectively as he showed that even with Sara and a Detective Lance that’s willing to help, capturing the bad guys may not get any easier. However, with Sara now a member of Team Arrow, the show is starting to have too many cast members as part of the team – or at least that might be the case in Felicity’s eyes – for when the Clock King outmatches her technological skills she starts to feel as though she’s no longer needed. What could have been a really cheesy episode in the wrong hands – we’ve all seen this sort of thing before in dramas where a new team member joins and an older one feels left out – across a variety of mediums, not just on TV – thankfully, the writers are more than capable of meeting the task and the end result is exceptional. Despite the large cast featured in this episode (they remember that Walter is still around! – but there’s still no mention of Isabel Rochev) – the show really can work wonders when it puts certain characters in the spotlight – and that was very much the case with this episode. Character-centric episodes have been the strongest of Season 2, and this was no exception.

However, it’s not a perfect episode. There were times where the show falls into the trap of having music play far too loudly, and apart from the very important, jaw-dropping final scene, there wasn’t much plot advancement in the overall storyline of Season 2 here. And also – there were some elements of poor dialogue this week, and as has been the case of late, the flashback sequences felt like weaker elements of the narrative – showing just how far the story has come, because I’m sure everyone agrees with me that the best part of Season 1’s earlier episodes were the flashbacks – but now it seems like the table has been flipped. The present day setting is currently the best part – and as things stand, it’s going to look to stay that way in the future. 

But despite the problem’s that I’ve mentioned above, they’re just minor issues with no major problems to be found, and in the scheme of things Time of Death may well end up being among one of the better episodes of the whole show. However, judging by that end reveal, and the upcoming episode entitled “Suicide Squad” – it looks like we will have some stiff competition on our hands. On top of that – I don’t think there’s a single Arrow fan who’s seen this episode who cannot wait for next week now, it can’t come quickly enough!