Arrow Season 5 Episode 4 "Penance" Review

Taking the Heroes to Church

Directed by: Dermott Downs

Witten by: Greg Berlanti 

Cast:  Stephen Amell, David Ramsey, Willa Holland, ect

Original Air Date: October 26, 2016

The surprise of my fall so far has been how Arrow has come back with a strong string of opening episodes to rekindle my interest. Oliver has a new team to run with, we have a couple interesting bad guys around stirring the pot, and our latest cliffhanger involved Mrs. Diggle requesting Arrow’s help in rescuing the mister from prison. Flashpoint has even had effects on the Arrow-verse resulting in Diggle having a son instead of daughter nullifying my earlier complaints about this season which seem to have been addressed. So without further ado lets jump on in where we left off last week and find out what’s in store for Ollie, Diggle, and company this episode. Will the mission result in either a Shawshank Redemption, crap covered escape, or an over elongated, Lets Go to Prison, type stay … read on.

Off the bat we see the new team in action consisting of, Artemis, Wild Dog, and Mr. Terrific stalking one of Tobias Church’s flunkies. Wild Dog gets a little too trigger happy taking an undisciplined shot, which was lined up for Artemis, all resulting in an Mr. Terrific receiving an ass kicking of a lifetime from the thug, Rocky style. The team screw-up forces Arrow to swoop in and save the day, after taking our low budget Sopranos wannabe down, with an arrow to the knee of course. This arrow to the knee bit now feels like one of Ollie’s patented moves this season ... I’m ok with that, it’s pretty brutal go to for Ollie showing he means business more than ever.

Back at base, Ragman decides he owes Ollie an explanation for his disappearance lately. Ol’ Raggy states he has to take a continued leave from the team. He was told by Felicity that the bomb, responsible for blowing his hometown to smithereens last season, was redirected there by her. This is forcing Rags to mull over his vigilante life decisions which he feels needs to be done away from the group responsible for his pain. 

After that dilly of a pickle is out of the jar, Ollie passes the news on to Felicity. He also makes his intentions known to rescue Diggle which is met with objections by everyone. Shortly thereafter the teams’ protests are beaten out of them when they try to prevent Ollie from leaving … and now we know to never prevent your boss from going on solo suicide missions. Meanwhile, Tobias Church attacks a police evidence locker in order to gain access to weapons, including a rocket launcher ... I don’t think he wants to shoot potatoes at the family reunion with it either.

Felicity, feeling awful, tracks down Ragman to smooth things over (as much as one can after exploding an entire town including the poor guys family) in an effort to get him back in the team fold. Ragman agrees some time later for dramatic effect and the group including Artemis, Wild Dog, and Mr. Terrific start to track down Tobias in an effort to get the stolen weapons cache back.

The episode reaches its climax as Ollie gains access to the military prison, finally tracking Diggle down after being moved to general population, for his rescue. The two old pals “Shawshank” it through the jail sewers to the surface only to be quickly surrounded by military personnel. Just when it looks like there backed into a corner, a plane flies by to scoop them up to safety via special cables. For those of you that like to compare Arrow to Batman Begins that was example 243 right there for your viewing pleasure.

As things wrap up we check in on our new team of heroes who have their hands full dealing with Tobias and his thugs. After rescuing a few citizens caught in the fray of bullets and punches the team tries to escape the scene and runs into a little trouble. Mr. Terrific takes a knife to the back of the shoulder blade while Wild Dog gets molly whopped by Tobias and his brass knuckles. As the episode concludes the remaining members of the team have to retreat to safety and have to leave Wild Dog in the custody of Tobias and his Taser. We leave this week as Ollie joins the remaining members of Team Arrow back at base to contemplate their next move while trying to track Wild Dog whereabouts. 

Damn, Arrow continues to bring the action and keeps the shows momentum moving forward this season at a very fast pace. This episode flew by for me and was packed with a bunch of important developments as Tobias Church becomes more and more of a serious threat to the team and city as a whole. I really love the new characters introduced so far and hope Artemis continues developing a larger role going forward while also crossing my fingers that Mr. Terrific learns to fight a little better … damn that boy keeps taking beating out there. Without a doubt this has been my favorite CW show so far this year and the previews for next week look to continue that trend.



Bits and Pieces:

I’ve said it a couple times in these reviews so far but it needs to be said again; if you jumped of this show at any point the last few years the Arrow you feel in love with is BACK … if you don’t believe me just watch next week’s preview and you’ll be back soon enough. I wont even say I told you so … but Jim might.

8.0/10