Arrow Season 7, Episode 4 recap: What’s the state of future Team Arrow?

A new episode of Arrow saw Oliver face the consequences of his actions, Felicity cross a major ethical line, and showed what happens to Team Arrow in the future.

While not an exceptional of Arrow, “Level 2” was a very solid episode of The CW’s flagship superhero series. It made meaningful advancements to various Star City subplots, although it did stumble with its Oliver (Stephen Amell) focused material. And most intriguingly, it offered some bleak but not altogether surprising revelations about the future Team Arrow. It also took pains to make sure the narratives in the present and the future complemented each other so the episode never lacked momentum.

Another thing “Level 2” did really well was that it widened the scope of the narrative beyond the interactions of Team Arrow. While not without strengths, Arrow Season 6 spent so much time charting Oliver’s slow fall from grace and Team Arrow’s breakup and reformation that the show got to feel a little hermetic.

By contrast, the season has shown the effect of losing Team Arrow has had on Star City and the show feels bigger and richer as a result. Once again, Beth Schwartz showed that she was an ideal choice to become Arrow’s new showrunner.

 “Facts are, Rene, things were better off with the vigilantes “

The episode began with Oliver being told by Slabside’s psychiatrist Dr. Parker that his mental state needed to be assessed before he would be integrated into Level2’s population.  In Star City, Rene (Rick Gonzalez) tried to convince Felicity (Emily Bett Rickards) not to torture the Silencer (Miranda Edwards) for info on Diaz (Kirk Acevedo). Later, Rene and Dinah (Juliana Harkavy) attended a Glades community meeting in a building that was firebombed. Rene’s daughter Zoe (Eliza Faria) was nearly killed in the blaze but was saved by the New Green Arrow.

The last few seasons of Arrow, it’s been clear how the police, local politicians and the federal government feel about vigilantes. But this episode showed how ordinary citizens view their presence in the city and their perspective is really interesting. Even without Diaz’s corruption of the SCPD, it’s clear that viewed the authorities as being overmatched. And after years of economic despair, widespread destruction and nuclear threats, the ordinary citizen is okay with a masked archer taking care of the bad guys.

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Since Oliver almost certainly won’t spend the entire season in the Slab, “Level 2” suggests how he might make a return to Star City. Since the people seem to be in support of vigilantes, a potential solution might be reintroducing them to the city as semi-legal authorities via something like Captain America: Civil War’s Sokovia Accords. Without a workaround like that, with Oliver’s identity being public, it’s hard to imagine how the series will continue.

“What is your name?”

In the future, Roy (Colton Haynes) and William (Ben Lewis) arrived in Star City and William’s tracking device received new coordinates. In the Slab, Dr. Parker used various methods to break Oliver, but he never gave in. In Star City, the new Mayor blamed Green Arrow for the fire, but evidence suggested it was a group of mercenary arsonists. Felicity asked Black Siren (Katie Cassidy) to help her interrogate the Silencer. After he helped Green Arrow escape questioning, Dinah arrested Rene. Later, Diggle (David Ramsey) gave Dinah a lead about the arsonists supplied by Green Arrow and advised her to reconsider her position on vigilantism.

While this did well with all of its Star City subplots, it Oliver-centric story was kind of weak. From the moment Dr. Parker was introduced, it was clear what their dynamic was going to be. And since Oliver’s superpower is his unbreakable will, it was also clear how the storyline was going to conclude. If there had been some wrinkle his character, like a genuine desire to help Oliver instead of breaking him, that narrative strand would’ve been more intriguing. But as it was, the Oliver/Dr. Parker stuff was an exercise in predictability.

Despite the weakness of the Oliver plotline, the Star City material was all really strong. It was interesting to see Felicity cross even more lines in pursuit of Diaz. Although obvious in retrospect, it was kind of shocking to see her willingly team up with Black Siren. Clearly, the dissolution of Team Arrow has hit her incredibly hard and it’s becoming worrisome to see where desperation is taking her. It’s dismaying that she’s become somone who condones torture now. Because right now, Felicity seems destined to repeat the self-destructive mistakes that landed Oliver in prison.

“Are you prepared to be ruthless?”

In Star City, Dinah freed Rene and the pair stopped the arsonists with help from Green Arrow. Felicity allowed Silencer to escape so she would lead her to Diaz and Siren asked if she could Diaz. In the future, William and Roy retrieved a map of the city’s hidden passageways and encountered an older Dinah. Being them to her hideout, Dinah revealed that the arson scheme resulted in the Glades becoming a walled-off police state. She also revealed that she and an adult Zoe were part of a vigilante resistance and that Felicity couldn’t have sent to coordinates because she was dead.

The best-executed aspect of “Level 2” was seeing how actions in the present would affect the future. Although Dinah’s tentative acceptance of the New Green Arrow seemed like a positive development, the future ban on vigilantes suggests something horrific happens as a result of their presence in Star City. And why she would shift her perspective on vigilantism so totally. It was similarly interesting to see how committed Rene was to Star City in the present only to learn that he abandons it and his daughter in the future. It’s hard to imagine what could happen that would change those characters so drastically.

And most upsettingly, there’s the question of what happens to Felicity. Although William was away to boarding school, it seems unlikely that he wouldn’t be told about the death of his stepmother. As such, it seems likely that she died closer to the future timeline the present one. While that provides some hope about her surviving the Diaz conflict, it raises a lot of questions Roy and William’s quest. Like, if Felicity is dead, did else someone arrange for them to return to Star City? And is this mysterious person an old ally or someone who has been nursing a vendetta against Oliver Queen and his allies?

Who did you think brought William and Roy to Star City?

Arrow airs on The CW Mondays at 8 pm.