In Review: Arrow – Present Tense

Synopsis: When a mysterious new Deathstroke appears in Star City, Oliver and Team Arrow insist on taking down this villain themselves. Meanwhile, reeling from the loss of one of their own, the future Team Arrow figures out a new way to try and stop JJ.

Review: The Arrow Farewell tour continues with a stop in the present tense.

The Story

Future and present tense collide when Mia, William, and Connor find themselves sent back in time to 2019 where they get to work alongside Team Arrow. There is little time for Mia to get acquainted with Oliver or for Connor to tell his future adoptive father Diggle about the fate of J.J. because Deathstroke launches an attack on the city. Mia, William, and Connor go after him thinking that it is J.J. from their future, but it turns out to be Grant Wilson, the son of Slade. As the episode ties present and future events together. We learn that it was Grant who trained J.J to be the killer he is in the future, which makes Mia determined to end him due to her feeling fairly fresh anger and Grief at the death of her friend and Rene’s daughter Zoey.

When Mia and her team run into trouble it is up to the original Team Arrow led by Ollie to save them and figure out a way to work with them in order to bring down Grant Wilson. It is a task made difficult by pretty high emotions as Connor and William tell Rene and Diggle about the fate of the children in the future. But they all eventually find a way through.

The Monitor, who knows that Oliver is onto him makes Laurel an offer she may struggle to refuse.

The Acting

Some solid performances in this episode as a fair few revelations are made. There is a nicely played scene between Ben Lewis and Stephen Amell in which William tells Oliver that he is gay, and gets a very understanding, “we knew.” from his father. We also get a nice performance from Katherine McNamara as Mia who is having some issues connecting with Oliver due to the fact that she feels he abandoned her and Felicity when he chose to go with The Monitor.

It was also nice to see a return for Echo Kellum as Curtis who has some very funny scenes with William as the two hack their way through Grant Wilson’s computer network.

Overall

A fun episode with some great callbacks to the past and future as well as a bunch of nice character moments.

My one criticism is that Grant Wilson’s version of Deathstroke seemed like a rather weak villain when compared to the original Slade Wilson version.