Disbanded: Arrow 518 Review

               Oliver:  Chase has wounded Oliver's mind, so that he believes what he told Chase, that he is a killer at heart and loves to kill. He disbands the team, because he doesn't want the team to be hurt or killed, and he's worried that they might become like Chase himself.  Oliver's tortured soul over his friends, reveals that he is not the killer Chase wanted him to believe.  Stephen Amell did a great job of showing us how tormented he was.  His eyes spoke of pain. How could Chase in six days of torture cause Oliver to believe he is a killer?  It's because Oliver has always believed that he was.  He had never been fully convinced that he was anything different.  He always took the blame for wrongs done to him.  That's why he let Felicity walk away from him. That's why he didn't tell her the decision he made about William.  He shuts off a part of himself and won't or wouldn't let anyone fully in.  Felicity wanted to be fully in his life.  Everything that's happening to him now, leads him to the point where he will and must let people in.   He thinks he is the killer that Chase convinced him through torture, and so he is going to find a way to get to Chase.  So, he decided to call on Anatoly and the Bratva to kill Chase.  This shocks Diggle and Oliver orders him out.  But it is John Diggle that won't give up. He keeps going back to Oliver and reminding him that Oliver is better than that.  He becomes Oliver's light. It had to be Diggle to bring him to the light, because Felicity has enshrouded herself in darkness.   Diggle knows that the Hood is not a mask to hide the killer. Perhaps in the beginning it was, but  it has a new meaning now.  Diggle points him to what is also true in Oliver's heart that he cares too much to be a cold-blooded killer.  Oliver believes Diggle and they suit up to stop Anatoly, only Oliver can't bring himself to wear the suit.  He suits up the way he did in the first episode of season 4.  Is he afraid that if he puts on the suit, he becomes a killer?  Oliver and the team stop Anatoly from taking any more of the drugs.  He now has an enemy in Anatoly.

        Oliver and Felicity:  When Oliver disbands the team, he cannot look directly at Felicity or Diggle.  If you noticed he kept his eyes away from Felicity, he can't bear to look at her, and they are surrounded by green light.  The green light symoblizes growth and renewal.  There will be hope for Olicity, it is coming, folks.  He can't look at Felicity, because he knows if he does, he will cave.  He might be tempted to change his mind. He believes if she is in his life, she will be in danger, and so he disbands his family, and he can't look at the one he loves.   Felicity stares at him, and you know her heart is filled with love and at the same time anger.  Felicity wants revenge on the one who did this to Oliver.  Felicity chooses to go after Prometheus via Helix, and let's the team save the city. Felicity is drawn more deeply into Helix.  I think it was cool that Curtis, knows what she's up to, and works to help her, so that it becomes Team Oliver and Team Felicity working on the same goal, but different angles.  

Oliver and Diggle:  Diggle and the team stop Anatoly from taking the diabetes drugs, which in Russia, Anatoly will convert to street drugs, heroin in particular.  Oliver is upset and goes to see Diggle at his house, and then we have the best dialogue between Oliver and Diggle.  Diggle won't ever push Oliver away no matter how hard he tries.  He draws Oliver towards the light.   That, my friends, is friendship.

              Adrian Chase:  No one has played the role of a psychopath better than Josh Segarra!  I thought Gene Hackman in Unforgiven was scary, but Josh Segarra is far better, in my humble opinion, anyway.
He is always one step ahead of the team every time.  He knew Felicity would find and reveal who he was, so when the officers who had Chase in police protective custody, got the text message, he knew what it was.  He then thew that pen in the eye of the office, and proceded to kill them.  Not just kill them, but he delighted in it.  Even after they were dead, he kept beating them.  He is the killer he accused Oliver of being and he liked killing.  Everything he is, he projected onto Oliver.  There is no light at all in Adrian Chase.  He is far worse than Slade Wilson.  It was so creepy to see him in the car, with the blood of his victims all over his face and clothes, singing a happy song.  That's personification of the definition of psychopath.  This also tells me that because he steps ahead of Oliver, he knows what Felicity will do, and she is in danger.  

Anatoly:  I found it very interesting that from the flashbacks, Anatoly didn't want Oliver to leave Russia.  He said to Oliver, "I'm afraid of what I will become if you leave."  So clearly there he didn't really believe Oliver was a cold-blooded killer.  Oliver takes friendships seriously.  He really thought Anatoly was a true friend, one who stick by you no matter what, but Anatoly told Oliver he wasn't leaving, and Oliver had to stick the agreement. When Oliver tells him that he thought they were friends, Anatoly reminded him of what he had said five years ago in Russia, "I told you I was afraid of what I would become if you left."  Now we know that's an excuse.  Life is path of choices. Baltasar Gracian wrote, "Never open the door to a lessr evil for other and greater ones invariably slink in after it."  Chase and Anatoly opened those doors, but Oliver did not.

Susan Williams:  Okay, I guess I must admit that I have been totally wrong about Susan Williams.  I honestly thought her a villain and that she somehow had a Russian connection.  She wasn't the villain I thought, but she was not really in love with Oliver either.  Their parting was not the parting of lovers.  Remember how Oliver looked when Felicity left him?
    Well, it was certainly different after he told Susan he couldn't be with her.  She didn't even try and convince Oliver that they could do it.  She just walked out.  Not that I am sorry, I'm not, but it certainly spoke volumes to me.  She only loved Oliver for a byline,  She just walks out the door.  Will there be more of her?  I, for one, hope not.

These last few episodes have surely been exciting and well acted on everyone's part.  But now we have to wait until April 26th, and when Arrow returns what a ride that will be!