After some one and done stories, the ongoing story arc resumes as Damien Darhk rears his head in the 80's. It leads to a lot of fun nods to the time period. Heck, the episode opens with a homage to Miami Vice.
While the Reagan administration is used as a backdrop for the plot, the episode manages to avoid getting too soap boxy. There is, however, quite a lot of debating going on, which I suppose is fitting.
Jackson, for example, wants to step up their game and change history as opposed to just maintaining it. You can understand his point, and the intention is certainly noble, but that sort of rhetoric has also made way for many a super villain. At the same time, Stein's assertion that they need to worry about the butterfly effect also comes off as hollow considering how many times the team has cut loose over the course of the series.
Sadly, it isn't given much focus as the episode has many other aspects to explore. It was kind of disappointing to see Amaya regress to the colder, more detached persona, as she chides the team for their chumminess. It's consistent with the JSA as seen here, but it's a far cry from the comic team, that took the Titan approach and viewed it as more of a family than a team. Again, she warms up at the end, but it seems like a journey that was already taken.
Even the concept of the JSA being a legacy is tossed aside, as we see that the team disbanded soon after the war. To be fair, I'm OK with this development. If it were suddenly revealed that the team was still active, it would have pushed suspension of disbelief too far. It's said that the team operated under deep cover, but it still would have been a hard pill to swallow that there was a team of superheroes this whole time, even before Oliver and Barry rose to influence.
On the plus side, we get to see Lance Henrikson as an older Obsidian. It would have been nice for him to get more screen time, but he manages to do a lot with what he has.
The episode picks up a few dangling plot threads, such as Sara's desire for revenge for Laurel. It makes sense and, once again, her desire gets the team in trouble. Luckily, she is aware enough to acknowledge the mistake and try to avoid it, albeit temporarily.
Stein once again running into himself didn't work as well. It didn't really do anything that wasn't already done when they had met previously. Honestly, it would have been nice to see that time focused elsewhere.
Mick actually got to shine this week. Normally, he's just comic relief and he's great at it, but Purcell got to show some actual depth as we see that Mick is still mourning the loss of his old partner. It's one of the more memorable parts of the episode, in all honesty.
It was also interesting to see how this episode still managed to tie in the events from last season of Arrow despite technically taking place before it. Sure, Damien is unaware, but Thawne makes a reference to the ark and how that plays out and Sara goes into much greater detail as a way to break him.
It almost worked, except now Damien wants to change things, leading to him forming a more official alliance with Thawne. If the intent is to "fix" the events from Arrow's fourth season, this could be the means Sara needs (or the writers need) to bring her sister back.
I do find it a bit strange that immortal characters are repeatedly given access to time travel. First Vandal, now Damien. It seems redundant, as Darhk can play the long game, but going back is certainly an asset. Watching McDonough play off himself would be interesting to see, I'm not going to lie.
We're still not sure what Thawne's end game is. Darhk is a bit clearer, he's begun his quest to collect potentially powerful artifacts, presumably to combat the metas who now plague him. This lends credence to the self fulfilling prophecy I mentioned before.
The episode was a fun watch, but I don't know if it will go down as one of the season's highlights. Things moved forward on several fronts, but there weren't as many stand out moments as other episodes had delivered.
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