My Review of Arrow 1.20- Home Invasion

Oliver makes a choice so Diggle splits, Tommy makes a choice and splits himself, and Roy makes a choice and Thea doesn't split....

Sometimes it seriously sucks to be Oliver.  He promised Diggle that he would help capture Deadshot and he promised Tommy that he would help look after Laurel.  So what does he do when these two promise conflict?  Does he help Diggle who is generally there for him?  Or does he follow through on his personal mission and try to get Tommy's trust back?  That is what we call a major dilemma.  Ultimately, Oliver chooses to help Laurel and Tommy so as to follow through on his personal mission.  Was it the right choice?  That is a hard call.  Thinking about it dispassionately, helping out Laurel and Tommy makes a great deal of sense.  Diggle can take care of himself and would be in a location where there would be trained agents.  Laurel and Tommy, on the other hand, are not trained and would be going up against an assassin alone.  Also, there is the fact that defending the people of Starling City is Oliver's personal mission, so doing what he did followed that.

The problem is that Oliver was faced with 2 unpalatable options, so he chose the one with which he could most easily live.  There was also the personal angle to consider.  Oliver wants Tommy to trust him again, and to do so would require helping Laurel.  I do think Diggle had a point when he said that Oliver would always help Laurel, but I think he was wrong in this case in and so far as it was not *ALL* about Laurel.  Breaking a promise to Diggle was not good and opened a rift that will take a while to heal.  The only (possibly) good thing about this rift is that it may give Roy a chance to come in as the new sidekick.

I want to be annoyed at Diggle, but the fact that I get where he is coming from makes that extremely difficult.  He has a right to be upset and angry.  After all, Oliver did make a promise to him and then broke it to save Laurel (again!).  Part of the problem is that Oliver's quest to protect the whole city has taken precedence time and again over Diggle's more personal vendetta.  Is that right?  The answer to that question depends on how you view the good of the many versus the good of the one.

I so want to know how Roy is going to find out about Oliver and if he plans on telling Thea, because that would be more than just a little interesting.  I was highly amused at the lengths to which Roy would go in order to find the Vigilante.  And now that Thea is going to be working with him, I have to wonder how the search will go.  She was so shocked at the body in the morgue, when/if she finds out that Oliver is the Vigilante, will she be able to handle it?  I suspect that Roy will have an easier time handling the situation if only because he is accustomed to the grey moral choices whereas Thea is more of a black & white girl.

I am definitely annoyed at Tommy.  I was glad that he unbent enough to realize that Oliver's house would be the safest location to go given the fact that Oliver is the Vigilante.  I am also glad that he seemed to accept Oliver's word that Oliver was not going to chase after Laurel regardless of his personal feelings.  What I am annoyed about is the fact that Tommy broke up with Laurel because of a future possibility.  First, Laurel would have to find out about Oliver and Oliver is doing everything in his power to avoid that possibility.  And second, would Laurel really choose Oliver if she did find out?  It is possible, but Tommy's reaction was more than just a tad overdone.

Until next week!