Arrow Season Six Premiere Recap: “Fallout” – Who Died?
The main problem with “Fallout,” is its predictability despite the major cliffhanger last season. Arrow has always been a show about high stakes and darkness which has led to the deaths of a few key characters such as Laurel, Moira, Thea, and Sara.
Of course, the latter two were brought back to life but it still felt like anyone could die on the series with Arrow‘s fearlessness of killing off characters. Unfortunately, the explosion in the finale only serves to fridge a guest star, while the rest of the cast escapes (mostly) in complete health. It’s a step back, and unfortunately, the series is going to have to reestablish the risks now because their decision to lower the ramifications from the finale will make it hard to fear for characters in tough situations.
So, who was the unlucky member of Team Arrow to bite the dust in “Fallout”? That would be Samantha, William’s mom who sadly dies just in time to have Oliver promise to look after William. Considering the audience barely knew her, it isn’t exactly as big of a heartbreaking loss that the writers seem to think it is. The real hit to the team is Thea, whose seemingly lifeless body is shown to Oliver via his now frenemy, Slade. Again, Thea was the other predicted death after Willa Holland cut back on the show last season, and her coma seems like a convenient way to keep her out of the picture until the actress can jump back in.
With the deaths dealt with, “Fallout” deals with the literal fallout of the remaining characters lives. Felicity is back together with Oliver (cue the screams of Olicity shippers), but the two are having difficulty adjusting to William. The former is still uncomfortable with him, while Oliver is getting a heavy dose of angsty pre-teen from his son. It turns out that William is having nightmares about a “bad man” who he finds responsible for the death of his mother, and its devastates Oliver when he realizes that it’s him. The two make up by the episode’s end, and Stephen Amell really sells their scenes but it’s still not enough to appease viewers who were wary of the addition of a child. Just looking at other genre shows with a preteen, such as Buffy the Vampire Slayer, The Strain, or The Walking Dead, kids tend to be irritating characters for everyone.
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The three characters who get the biggest baggage after the island trip are Dinah, Quentin, and Diggle. The former two were stuck between a rock and a hard place back on Lian Yu when Quentin was forced to “kill” Black Siren to save the new Black Canary. While Dinah is thankful, poor Quentin is still feeling the ramifications of shooting his fake daughter. Luckily, Black Siren survives and has returned to the city looking to stir up some trouble with the villain of the week.
Alex Faust gets arrested before he can blow up the city, but turns out that it was his plan all along. Tearing a tooth out, it causes an explosion which kills multiple officers but allows him to escape along with doppelgänger Laurel. The two team up to break into the Arrow lair to steal one of Curtis’ T-Spheres before escaping the team once again. It’s a pretty typical “villain of the week,” in “Fallout,” because the show spends more team checking in with the characters. For example, is Diggle’s mysterious injury physical or mental? It should be interesting to follow his storyline with his inability to shoot putting everyone on the team in danger.
To be clear, “Fallout,” isn’t a bad episode of Arrow, it’s just a disappointment after Season Five. That finale was a complete shock to viewers, and it showed that the series was ready to head in a new direction after staying in place for so long. To see that the series took the easy way out is disappointing, and it also takes away Adrian Chase’s big villainous moment in the finale. It was a waste of Josh Segarra to kill him off in those final moments if his actions would have no serious impact on the team.
Next: The Flash Season Four Premiere Recap: “The Flash Reborn”
With Oliver being outed (once again!) as the Green Arrow, the show is going to have to reassure fans that it won’t be sinking back down to the depths of Seasons Three and Four or else this is going to be a very long year.