“Arrow” Has Some Daddy Issues

So which dad screwed up the most on Arrow’s Sins of the Father? Spoilers ahead!

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Noah Kuttler, portrayed by Tom Amanders, returns to make amends with his daughter, Felicity Smoak, after discovering how talented she is on the computer. Noah however flunked Felicity’s trust test with flying colors when he tried to steal all the data at Palmer Technologies. Felicity doesn’t hesitate to have him arrested by Laurel Lance’s father, Quentin Lance, who just so happen to be dating Felicity’s mother. Funny how things come around.

Father of the day goes to none other than Malcolm Merlyn. Malcolm has used his daughter, Thea Queen, to kill Sara Lance and his son, Tommy, died during his plan to “save” Star City. He has done a lot worse throughout Arrow (like help revive Vandal Savage), but these are probably his worse two as a father. Just when you think he couldn’t do anything worse, Malcolm risks Thea’s life just so he can remain the leader of the League of Assassins and went as low as to bring up Oliver Queen’s father during an argument with Oliver. No longer being bound by the League of Assassins, Malcolm takes it even farther by telling Damian Darhk about Oliver’s son. Oliver really should have killed Malcolm when he had the chance. Speaking of which, isn’t someone supposed to die during a trial by combat?

Sins of the Father had a large focus on whether someone can truly change. The answer it turns out is yes and no. Noah and Malcolm demonstrate that there are some people that will never change and Arrow explores how far characters like Malcolm will go to get what they want. Nyssa on other hand proves that people can change and she even went as far as to disband the League of Assassins to prove she will not be like her father. This however brings up many questions on how this will affect the DC Television Universe.

My biggest gripe about this episode, and the second half of the season in general, is that it feels like one long filler arc. Maybe I’m just being nitpicky, but we’ve had three different enemies since the mid-season finale and no progress on how to defeat Damian. It seems like Arrow is just trying to tie up loose ends like Thea’s bloodthirst and promote as many DC characters as they can with Superman v Batman releasing next month.