Emiko has just dropped a building on the team. They’re isolated, hurt, scared and wanted for murder. But it’s OK, Tommy Merlyn has a plan.

Kindness is not a word you normally associate with Arrow. This is a show about a broken man and a broken city and how the two have painfully slowly put themselves back together and it’s always got blood on its knuckles and dirt on its fingernails. So when Tommy turns up this episode you fully expect him to be the embodiment of Oliver’s tortured guilt. His best friend who died in a very similar situation to the one Oliver’s in. A man who took one different path and paid the ultimate price for it. The perfect avatar for vengeance.

So Oliver does what he does and with that grumpy calm we’re going to miss so much proceeds to think his way out. He rescues his team, confronts Emiko and kills and… then time stops. In the hands of literally any other episode this would be murderously cheap and annoying. But it’s not here, not at all. Because of what Tommy truly represents.

Love. Forgiveness. Redemption.

Tommy represents the part of Oliver that he’s been trying to suppress: his capacity to forgive. The entire episode is built around the psyche of a man who is profoundly damaged telling him that it’s OK. That he doesn’t have to take vengeance. That anyone can be saved. And it does that with the face of the first person he couldn’t save. It’s astonishingly powerful stuff and the final scene between Amell and Colin Donnell here is heart breaking. Oliver, tears streaming down his face, telling his best friend how much he misses him is a world away from the dead voiced spirit of vengeance. But it’s also exactly who he needs to be; a man who can feel as well as think, knowing that will give him an edge against an opponent who refuses to do the one thing she inadvertently teaches Oliver to do: feel.

It’s fiercely sharp, kind writing acted off the screen by a cast who all bring their A game. There’s some flashforward stuff too, which is fun, but honestly 90% of the episode is exactly where it needs to be: in the room Oliver needs to realize he doesn’t have to stand in.

Verdict: Phenomenally good. 10/10

Alasdair Stuart