A vax from Merlyn saves the day,
And Flash briefly comes out to play,
And while he's sympathetic,
He offers a pathetic
Handwave as to why he can't stay.
Then, somewhat to my dismay,
Katana steps out of the fray.
But Ollie, still sane,
Sabotages the plane
The trap's sprung, but Ra's still gets away.
Ra's wants to make the virus spread,
But Thea's back, now decked in red.
And newly-supported,
The team sees the plan thwarted,
And Oliver kills Ra's stone dead.
Freed from being Ra's' tool,
Nyssa goes back to ninja school,
Only to find
That there's no peace of mind,
For Merlyn's the new Ra's Al Ghul.
Now Ollie, guided by a dream,
Chooses to pursue a new stream.
And thus it transpires
That Ollie retires,
And leaves the city to his team.
I've said this show could be a gem,
If it would focus on the femmes.
Now we're happ'ly aligned
To leave Ollie behind
And retool the show around them.
Thawne, interrogated, is calm,
But drops an offer like a bomb:
If he won't be harried,
Then he'll permit Barry
To go back and rescue his Mom.
The choice here is hard to assess,
And Barry takes a brief recess
To ask for advice
Whether to pay the price,
And, at great length, decides to say yes.
He's shot back in time like a spring,
And when the time comes for a swing,
He comforts and cries
With his mom while she dies,
But chooses not to change anything.
Returned before Wells could get gone,
Barry fights his escape with fists drawn.
And to turn the tide,
Eddie commits suicide
To erase his descendant, Thawne.
A resultant black hole starts its clanging,
And without a moment's haranguing,
Barry runs 'round,
Trying to shut it down,
And 'til next season, we're left hanging.
The series has really progressed,
And during the time of its rest,
It will be missed.
But aside from one twist,
This wasn't the show at its best.
So our heroes find Wells' track,
But he runs when they come to attack.
Wells remains un-caught,
But it wasn't for naught,
'Cause they manage to get Eddie back.
But Wells' plans aren't saved for later,
And he might turn the lab to a crater,
And "meta"s under key
Will be doomed if he
Re-starts the accelerator.
Although Barry never forgave them,
He still won't let Wells autoclave them.
And though it's not smart,
He even hires Snart
In one last-ditch effort to save them.
So he gets them all out, perforce,
But it turns into a Trojan Horse.
They all get in a scrape,
The rogues make their escape,
And it all goes to crap, 'cause of course.
And there's time for one more mad dash,
With a massive blowout, team-up clash
As Firestorm and Arrow
Both jump on the barrow
To beat up Wells, the Reverse-Flash.
Ollie's, by now, purged of all pity,
And his affect seems all dark and gritty.
And now he's come through,
He is thusly meant to
Marry Nyssa, then kill Starling city.
But he has a new plan unfurlin',
That, with luck, will set us whirlin'
Although it's unclear
Where it all goes from here,
He's secretly plotting with Merlyn.
To Starling town Merlyn then treks
To recruit those who Ollie respects.
They launch an assault
On old Ra's Al Ghul's vault,
And Tatsu puts a sword through her ex.
Ollie's meant to confuse and inspire us,
Though the flashbacks continue to tire us.
So Akio's dead,
Ollie's soon to be wed,
And his friends are locked up with the virus.
It*s not meant to be understood
Whether Ollie's with the brotherhood.
Nobody knows.
That keeps us on our toes,
And this ep was uncommonly good.
Iris finds she's the newcomer
To knowing 'bout Flash. That's a bummer,
So she doesn't tarry
In tracking down Barry.
She confronts him for keeping it from her.
A new rogue, who's dour and unsmiling,
Runs about in milit'ry styling.
Flash takes him to task,
But when they unmask,
It turns out to be General Eiling.
But the Eiling facade is for show,
And the real puppeteer dwells below.
The team goes in madly,
But that goes quite badly,
Wells has Eddie, and Grodd now has Joe.
Barry finds that it's quite a strain
To fight one with a psychic brain.
Though it's not well played,
With Iris' aid,
He defeats Grodd by way of a train.
It's easy enough to be snide,
And the CGI's fun to deride,
But really, whether Grodd
Made you jeer or applaud,
I just love the fact they even tried.
Our heroes found Wells' little shrine,
And a plan they soon start to design.
And through science intel,
They find out that Wells
Killed Cisco in another timeline.
From these memories Cisco repressed,
They plan for Barry's dad's egress.
They set traps and wait,
Using Cisco as bait,
And try to get Wells to confess.
Things go south, and Joe shoots Wells dead,
But turns out they've all been misled.
The newly-dead laddie's
The shapeshifting baddy,
And Wells is still one step ahead.
And now that he's set them unsteady,
Wells begins to get himself ready.
He's already displaced
To his underground base,
And made a prisoner of Eddie.
The show is swiftly making tracks,
And gives us no time to relax.
After weeks of cases,
We're off to the races,
Looking forward to the climax.
Last time, Ra's stabbed Thea, then fled,
And given just how much she bled,
It beggars belief
That to our slight relief,
She ends up in a coma, not dead.
But this was hardly a botched hit,
And Ra's just refuses to quit.
And says, to their chagrin,
That if Ollie gives in,
He'll let them use the Lazarus Pit.
With no choice, Ollie takes this route,
And lets the succession come about.
Though while they hold court,
The league has to thwart
Abortive tries to break him out.
Ollie's friends try to give chase,
But he thinks their efforts are misplaced.
He says 'bye to each friend,
And so by the end
He's ready to be the new Ra's.
Whatever the villainous cackles,
Or whatever drama it tackles,
The plan of attack
Will always be held back,
For the flashbacks are still self-made shackles.
With the prof betraying no tells,
And the info here ringing no bells,
Cisco and Joe
Hit the road and go
To Starling City to get dirt on Wells.
They find a body, and are wary.
They must bring this info back to Barry.
But not quite before
Cisco works to restore
And improve a sonic for Canary.
Back home, Flash must be even swifter.
There's a well-disguised, superpowered drifter.
And before they're ready,
Both Barry and Eddie
Must battle a skillful shapeshifter.
This baddie's got serious chops,
And Barry's first plan rather flops.
And while they're in a tizzy,
The shapeshifter's busy
Framing Eddie for shooting two cops.
But the shapeshifter's cover gets blown,
And the real truth about Wells gets shown,
But it's just so much grinding,
Because they're just finding
Out things viewers'd already known.
Roy's gambit was foolish, but brave,
And soon might send him to the grave.
The team thinks they can
Work out some kind of plan,
But Lance unearths the Arrow Cave.
But then, they have to improvise
As a new villain starts to arise -
An unpleasant soul
With ambiguous goals
And lasers coming out of his eyes.
With cops' eyes upon him all day,
Ollie is no longer free to stray,
But the ball can't be dropped,
And Deathbolt must be stopped,
So instead, the task falls upon Ray.
Team Arrow remains in no doubt
That Roy's escape must be brought about,
So within a short span,
They carry out a plan
To fake Roy's death to break him out.
With all plan A's chances now fled,
Ra's makes a new one in its stead.
And so his rebuttal
Gets rather unsubtle:
He seems to kill Thea stone dead.
Central City suddenly sees
Lots of bee-sting deaths causing unease,
Which opens the door
For hijinks galore,
And SO MANY jokes about bees.
Felicity drops by en route,
Bringing Ray and his super suit.
And I'm perfectly hip
That it's not everyone's ship,
But Raylicity is so cute.
No matter how dire the threat,
Our heroes don't just mope and fret.
In fact, I'd agree
That this might just "bee"
The funniest episode yet.
Once the goods and bads have their clash,
And the robot bees got soundly thrashed,
Iris throws a fit,
And threatens to split
If Eddie won't talk 'bout The Flash.
Barry conquers his inhibitions,
And makes his most dreaded admissions.
He calls up his friends,
And fin'lly contends
With his Harrison Wells suspicions.
So Ra's has dispatched an array
Of fake Green Arrows into play.
And just to inflame
This extravagant frame,
Faux-Arrow just up and shoots Ray.
The cops now won't back down or flee,
'Til the Arrow's their detainee.
And just to be sleazy,
Ra's makes their job easy
And outs Ollie's secret ID.
Ray's health is still on the downswing,
But the one thing this subplot can bring
Is merely to tie
Up Felicity's eye
So she can't just resolve everything.
And really, Ollie's actions have been
Getting much harder to spin.
Whether out of remorse
Or a matter of course,
Ollie finally turns himself in.
There's a great scene on the police bus
As Quentin and Ollie discuss,
But all of that sport
Is abruptly cut short
As Roy tries to pull a "Spartacus"
From some antique creative figment
Comes a new Trickster, just as malignant.
He acts without pity
And holds hostage the city,
But the O.G. Trickster seems indignant.
He says the kid stole his swan song,
But turns out he was steering us wrong.
The new one, though lesser,
Frees his predecessor.
Seems they were in league all along.
A fight with The Flash is soon blazing
Whose cleverness merits some praising,
But mostly of note
For the part they devote
To Barry's first real shot at phasing.
Afterwards, Barry finally tells
Eddie his ID and compels
Him to help out
To make it come about
That Iris stays away from Wells.
With this ep, the show neatly doffs
Its stumbling blocks, shudders, and coughs,
And I can't help but feel
This is the ideal
Of balancing arcs with one-offs.
SPOILERS
The episode's biggest surprise
Is the story the flashbacks comprise.
Despite what's been said,
The real Wells is dead,
And this one is just Thawne in disguise.
Digs and Lyla are getting remarried,
And hope to honeymoon unharried,
But find that they fast
Get caught up in the past
They'd hoped had been briefly buried.
Waller seems eager to tap
The two for an overseas scrap.
Deadshot comes along,
Which seems a bit wrong,
But the mission ends up as a trap.
We get flashbacks of Deadshot as grunt,
Recently returned from the front.
And at bloody long last,
We get looks at the past
That actually are relevant.
Meanwhile, Ra's kills with the aim
Of making Ollie take the blame.
Ray, as a tech wiz,
Learns just who Arrow is,
But he's still not convinced it's a frame.
Felicity and he dispute,
And she makes him give up the pursuit,
But not before he
Flies off on a spree
In his budget Iron Man suit.
While some bits lack dignified style,
The rest can still raise quite a smile.
So, after a fall-off,
Suddenly all of
This episode is quite worthwhile.
To keep a tidal wave at bay,
Barry ran 'til his legs gave way,
Running so fast
That he went to the past,
Albeit by only one day.
Though he's warned the tiniest ping
Can alter the pendulum's swing,
We all know he'll stave
Off the huge tidal wave,
And, in doing so, change everything.
And with this new temporal dawn,
Iris' love is now gone,
Captain Singh survived
Cisco's still alive
And Captain Cold's a mafia Don.
As always, the show simply pantses
Itself when it tries at romances.
Barry's in a daze,
Acts in stupid ways,
And nearly dashes all his chances.
The baddies have Cisco in hold,
Making guns that shoot heat, fire, and gold.
But through pain and doubt,
He soon gets himself out,
Though Flash has to bargain with Cold.
The romantic strife tends to smother
Its vastly superior other.
But though it lacks style,
The ep's still worthwhile
For the scenes with Cisco and his brother.
SPOILERS
Mason Bridge is about to arrive
At the truth about how Wells connives,
But before that gets out,
Reverse-Flash comes about,
Kills him and destroys his hard drive.
So, Ra's still wants Ollie as heir
And exploits those about whom he cares.
Ollie agrees
So he'll let them go free,
And so they escape from his lair.
Ollie's misdeeds through the season
Have, oddly enough, not been pleasin'.
So, though he was missed,
Everybody's still pissed,
And mostly for very good reason.
A new crimelord's after the prize
Who's sewn shut all but his eyes.
But the police cap
Still gives Ollie the rap
For not telling of his daughter's demise.
Ollie's jealousy is a farce
That Felicity finds hard to parse.
Folks shut out the voices
Of sensible choices,
And the flashbacks are still a right arse.
Disowned, Nissa thinks on a whim
To teach Laurel how to be grim.
While Ra's does his harm
To drive Arrow to his arms
By turning the city against him.
Team Arrow prepares for a blow
From a massively better-trained foe,
And the rest of the run
Is just everyone
Being told things we already know.
But Ra's' League is still in play,
And they really want someone to pay
For Sarah's demise,
So to no one's surprise,
The League just takes Merlyn away.
But Ollie, perhaps 'cause he's high,
Decides he can't let Merlyn die.
But through all the surprising-
-ly weak moralizing,
He won't give a good reason why.
Ray marches to the heroic drum,
And though his suit looks kind of dumb,
When we first see him try,
He manages to fly,
And Felicity finally gets some.
So Ollie and Diggle soon dare
To break right into the League's lair.
They soon lose their cover,
But, as we discover,
Ra's really wants Ollie as heir.
The ep sure is one snappy dresser,
But Ollie's dumb choice makes it lesser.
But it takes that hit,
'Cause I'll say this for it,
It's better than its predecessor.
Fearing execution for treason,
Ollie and Thea take a season
To train for a while,
So they go to the isle,
And have to train there for some reason.
To give Oliver back his drive,
Merlyn found Slade still alive,
Let him out for a thrill
To force Ollie to kill,
Which is interesting, if contrived.
But the rain of flashbacks is torrential,
And, as ever, inconsequential,
But as onward they plow,
They still manage somehow
To be more than usually tangential.
It's not like Oliver et al
Have that many plot points to corral,
So all this past action
Is just a distraction
From Slade's little Battle Royale.
There are big reveals to mull,
But of stuff we know, so it's null,
And somehow, in spite
Of flashed-back-to fights,
It just ends up terribly dull.
