Considering how much of a snake Macolm Merlyn has proved himself to be, Oliver really should have expected that Slade would be at large on the island! Though I enjoyed seeing Manu Bennett making a brief return to the show, adding an extra edge to the fight scenes as well as making a few sharp observations on our hero's psyche. I also enjoyed how the writers threw in a few jokes at the expense of the show's absurdities, making Oliver astounded at just how much Thea learned from Malcolm in 9 months, as well as Maseo's crack about how ineffective a hood and greasepaint streak would be as a disguise! However, having gone to the trouble of poking fun at earlier 'stupids', we then see Oliver recover a pistol from a grave (two absurdities for one really, a pistol most probably wouldn't work having been so poorly stored for that long and, more obviously, why didn't they take some guns with them in the first place?) that we hear functioning perfectly when required later in the episode. What could have been little more than a filler episode managed to develop things plot-wise; Thea refusing to follow the path Merlyn had set out for her, culminating in her rejection of him as her father; Laurel, by contrast, alienating her father through her keeping Sara's death from him; Oliver being increasingly shown as a man of 'heroic' integrity, returning to help a friend in trouble in the flashback, coming clean to Thea about Sara's death. As the episode ends, we see Malcolm still maintaining that refusing to kill will be Oliver's downfall, in fact he even suggests it was how he lost to Ra's the first time. This 'hesitation' idea hasn't really been as fully developed as it most probably should have, considering where the story is going next!
Review of The Return
