Arrow Season 7, Episode 7: Criticism of "The Slabside Redemption"

By Jesse Schedeen

Warning: Full Spoilers for the episode below.

The actors and the Arrow team make this week's episode very strong. It's not difficult to understand why. "The Slabside Redemption" is the culmination of the great story of the prison, season 7, and the source of the long-awaited revenge between Oliver Queen and Ricardo Diaz. Nevertheless, this episode does not live up to expectations. This is not even the strongest episode of Season 7.

At a certain level, you have to feel bad for the cast and the crew, as this episode airs just weeks after the release of Daredevil Season 3, Netflix. This series already serves as a benchmark in superhero martial arts on television, not to mention the incredible scene of single-shot prison fights in episode 4. It's hard to not to make comparison between the two they are in terms of tone and adjustment.

To a certain extent, making direct comparisons between Arrow and Daredevil is an apples / oranges scenario. Daredevil has a higher budget and fewer episodes, while being offered more directly to older viewers. More than any other series of superheroes, she managed to look like a 13-hour movie every season.

But on the other hand, it's not really the budget that made Daredevil's fight in such a memorable prison. Arrow's battle in prison is actually much more ambitious in terms of scale and number of fighters. Daredevil simply managed to do less with more. The choreography was much more complex. The claustrophobic environment has been better used. The lighting made it possible to see all the movements and to keep a clear idea of ​​each fighter's position and the way they move in the frame.

Although James Bamford (arguably Arrow's best action-picture director) behind the camera this week, the action was disappointing. At best, the major combat scenes took advantage of the height of the prison environment, particularly the sequence in which Ollie and Turner simultaneously fought their enemies on several levels. Apart from that, the action is rarely broken this week. The low point was easily the battle of the corridor between Ollie, Sampson and Brick. The dim lighting made it extremely difficult to determine which fighter was which, to the point that I wondered for a moment if Sampson had suddenly decided to betray Brick and join the Ollie team.

The Ollie / Diaz rematch match was also strangely disappointing. The decision to give the super-strength to Diaz certainly played a role in that. Rather than allowing a total fight between equals, this fight consisted essentially of a Diaz knife strike until he finally let his guard down. Why was this point of super-force intrigue really necessary?

I appreciate at least the poetic ending of this phase of the Ollie / Diaz rivalry. After swearing that he would never die in prison, Diaz found himself under-estimating his enemy and seeing his greatest fear come true. Although here again, the episode has proved frustrating and uncertain. I really thought that Ollie had killed Diaz based on the last shot of the bad guy who was bleeding and was considering his failure. But according to Stephen Amell himself, Diaz survived and simply became the new inmate 4587. Honestly, at one point, Arrow must let go of Diaz. Between this and the fact that the Longbow Hunters have quietly strayed out of Star City, it is rather the impression that these characters are put on paper balls, rather than receive a complete and appropriate mailing.

Despite all these complaints, there was still a lot on "The Slabside Redemption" that worked quite well. On the one hand, the decision to keep the story firmly anchored in Slabside and to ignore the rest of Team Arrow has helped to create a more focused narrative. It is much easier to feel the tension and isolation that fuel Ollie's mission if we remain as isolated from the outside world as he is. As a result, the accumulation of the final confrontation between Ollie and Diaz worked well, even though the gain proved to be insufficient. The sequence of the visitors' room worked particularly well, Diaz's bubbling rage playing well against Ollie's impotent and helpless fury.

It was also a great week for Michael Jai White's Ben Turner. Since his very first appearance, Turner has never been fully rewarded. The show took the most morally complex Suicide Squad member and withdrew most of its interesting qualities. This season has given Arrow writers a late chance to tackle this problem and maneuver Turner to become the hero (or at least the antihero) he is capable of being. Turner's decision to help Ollie felt a bit abrupt and I would like the previous episodes to do a little more to put that change of heart in place. Anyway, it's great to see the character take a more nuanced form, especially if the door is left open for his return to the Suicide Squad.

Despite unconventional fighting scenes, this episode also served as a powerful relay for Turner, Sampson and Brick's former allies. It's funny to see these two roles in recurring roles, but they have practically survived their usefulness at this point. And so, both had a death without glory, Sampson having been sliced ​​and burned alive and Brick having been stabbed by the last inmate whom he would have expected. Speaking of which, it was fun to see Stanley's dark side emerge this week, and he should make it a nice antagonist when he will inevitably get up in Star City.