Oliver arrives on Level Two and finds a challenge he is uniquely unprepared for. Felicity and Laurel team up and, to their tremendous mutual annoyance, are rather good at it. Rene’s daughter is injured in an arson attack and Rene and Dinah find themselves on different sides of the law when it comes to the new Green Arrow. And in the future, William and Roy make it back to Star City and almost immediately wish they hadn’t…

What a strange episode of a strange season this is. Freed from the constraints of the hood, Arrow is a weirder and better show than it’s been in years. There’s a willingness to bend the rules, to play with what the characters are doing and where the show is going that runs through this episode in particular. Laurel deciding actually she’d rather like being good. Felicity being one bad synaptic jump away from torturing Silencer. Roy and William walking a path that it looks pretty likely William’s mom laid down years ago. And Oliver, who never really left that life raft let alone Lian Yu, back there in the very worst of ways. Flashforwards, fake flashbacks, a new Green Arrow and a dark future Star City can’t avoid. And it’s just episode 4.

So what doesn’t work? Well if you’re looking for answers you’ll get few of them here. We spend more time with the new Green Arrow (I’m calling it as either Malcolm Merlin back from the dead or…Thea in lifts? Maybe?) than we’ve done before but get no clue as to who they are. Oliver’s on Level Two but doesn’t meet the Demon. Or rather, maybe does. The psychiatrist ‘treating’ him does seem a touch… demonic. No, the only answers we really get are in the future where the plot of the week cleverly provides background for why the city fell. It also gives Dinah a chance to show off an excellent greying hair do and a really sweet moment which shows the heroic legacy of Star City doesn’t pass directly to William Queen but to one of his contemporaries. It’s fun stuff, executed with flair by a cast and crew who know exactly what they’re doing.

That’s true all the way down. The Rene and Dinah stuff is especially fun given how much they butted heads last year and the pair of them working out it’s fun to work together is weirdly sweet in a massively sarcastic way. Likewise Felicity and Laurel which really is the double act I had no idea I wanted until this week. From Felicity faking her way into Laurel’s office to Laurel coming out and admitting she wants to do some good, it all feels hard earned and deservedly won. More power to these principled, troubled women who are done with the world’s nonsense and would just like to win now, please.

Strangely though, what’s going to stay with you this week is Star City’s future and the Oliver scenes. This is the most buttoned down Amell has had to be in seven years of this show and it’s a great performance. You can see him coming around to the frankly pretty legitimate framing of his father as a villain. You can see his horror at the thought of doing that to William and his relief at not having to do it himself anymore. It’s complex, layered acting in a plot which has no endgame in sight but brims with confidence. It’s also the show rendered down to its core; a principled, troubled survivor with a vast talent for violence trying to help.

Verdict: Arrow season 7 is, so far, 4 for 4. Complex, confident and essential superheroic storytelling. It’s also, weirdly, a pretty good jumping on point for the show. Excellent stuff. 8/10

Alasdair Stuart