Arrow 7x19 : Spartan review

Be warned there will be *SPOILERS* involved in this review. With that being said let's get into it.

With not many episodes left remaining this season, this week's episode of Arrow begins with Oliver and Diggle looking for Emiko. They end up running into Virgil (same guy from earlier in the season who Diaz ran into) they ask him where Emiko is but he flat out denies as he says he'd rather keep his head. He drops something while making his escape so Oliver and Diggle look to the ARGUS general for further support and intel. It turns out that the ARGUS General whose name is Stuart is actually Diggle's father in law. He worked with Dig's father who died while on a job before marrying his mom years later. The two don't seem to get on at all at first but as the episode goes on a mutual respect begins to form between the two which I really liked. Back at Felicity and Oliver's place and as her and her friend from Helix are discussing Archer being almost fully up and running and a possible sale intruders burst into the room. It's Virgil and some guys all in black from the Ninth Circle. Virgil ends up taking Archer leaving Felicity practically blind in the process. With no real access to anything Oliver and the others are on the case to retrieve it. While out and about Dig and his step-father end up getting kidnapped by none other than Dante himself. He tortures them both for a secret code that only the general knows. He caves in a bit too easily in my opinion though as the code is for a secret weapon project. With the code now in his possession Dante leaves the room leaving the general and Diggle to make their escape. They succeed but just as they take out one guard the rest of Team Arrow comes bursting through a wall (literally) 

Back at the bunker and the general says the code that he gave Dante was for an extremely dangerous weapon that has been mainly kept a secret. Soon after this Felicity learns that Dante and the Ninth Circle now have Archer in their possession and are using it to find the location of the weapon. Felicity ultimately makes the decision to self destruct Archer from inside the bunker as Dante blocks access to it from his location. With a buttons touch she ends the Archer programme and says she'll just start again one day. As we know from the future the Archer programme does make a come back but falls into the wrong hands. Speaking of the future Felicity cracks the helmet that Mia was given by Laurel at the end of last week's episode and it turns out to be Galaxy One who have expanded Archer in an even bigger way. All of this is going to come to a major head soon and it's going to get really intense I can already feel it. Felicity in present day before destroying Archer managed to piggyback off it's location so Team Arrow set off to try and stop Dante and Emiko from getting / using the weapon. Upon arrival Oliver is faced with Emiko. He tells her that Dante killed her mom, she doesn't believe him at first which leads to the two battling it out. Complete with a really cool scene of both their arrows meeting in the middle after being shot. Later back at the bunker Diggle and the general hug it out and gain a mutual respect for one another after Dig learns what he done while working with his dad. Their relationship started off rocky and while felt a bit out of place was good to watch. 

                                  

The episode comes to a close out in the open night where we see Dante talking about how Oliver and friends are a big problem. He asks Emiko to handle it. She says she will but she has to do one thing first. And not surprisingly shoots Dante with multiple arrows. Standing over his now almost lifeless body she says that her mom was the only family she had and he took it away from her. He says he did what he had to do so that Emiko would one day lead the Ninth Circle. Emiko reaches for one of the arrows stuck in Dante and turns it before saying burn in hell. So I guess Emiko will be the big bad now?? with Dante out of the picture things just got a whole lot more interesting. The episode as a whole here was okay. Much like last week was solid but nothing major. It's not really upping the anti as I'd expect as we head into the end of the season. I hope things change very soon as overall this season has been a big improvement over season 6. Until next week then Team Arrow!

★★★