2/11/2024 0 Comments Lian yu summaryChase plans everything down to this final moment. In the end, Chase pulls a Moriarty, killing himself to enact the ultimate revenge on Oliver. Is that cruel? Maybe, but it is also a great narrative decision. (Except Lyla, I guess?) I know that Arrow didn’t really just kill off most of its cast, but I would love to see a delay in their return (maybe they ended up on a different “deserted” island nearby?) just so we can see Oliver raising his son and angsting a little bit over the hiatus. Oliver’s going to need that love moving forward, given that he is seemingly now the sole parent of a child he doesn’t know with almost no support system. This is where his salvation has always lain. Even when Oliver was at his worst, he loved and was loved. But his mother automatically breaks through all that. At this point in Oliver’s arc, he is hardened and he is determined and he doesn’t see himself worthy of love. In a flashback, we see Oliver call home right after being picked up off of Lian Yu. Moira’s character is not only excellent in her own right, but brings out a different side of Oliver. Susanna Thompson’s Moira Queen was one of the consistent strengths of this show from the pilot episode, at a time when the show didn’t have everything figured out. It was Moira’s cameo that really packed a punch. (Did anyone really care about Harkness? No.) The finale was the pinnacle of that effort and it paid off, bringing back everyone from Slade to Malcolm, Nyssa to Moira. Season 5 has most thrived as a story when it has strived to tell a story that utilizes not just Season 5, but everything that has come before. “Lian Yu” felt like one, big family reunion. If that’s not a victory, then I don’t know what is. Because Oliver and everyone who sided with him chose love. Did he win? I’ve been thinking about this a lot since finishing this episode. He kidnapped all of his loved ones and locked them up in cages to prove the point. To the very end, all Chase cared about was teaching Oliver a lesson. Chase was trying to teach Oliver a different lesson. The lesson was also delivered by Adrian Chase, although not intentionally. The mirakuru saved him, in some sense of the word, but it couldn’t save Shado. Presumably, Slade has survivor’s guilt, too. You have “survivor’s guilt,” Slade tells him, matter-of-factly. It was that survivor status that Oliver has never quite been able to accept. It makes sense that Slade would understand Oliver so well: he was there when Oliver became the man he is today, when he transitioned from a spoiled rich kid to a survivor. Slade has always been Oliver’s best mentor, even more so when he is not. Of course, this insight, though gradually learned over the course of years, came in a succinct nutshell from the one and only Slade Wilson. Instead, he used the scraps of that soul to “right wrongs,” to kill whomever he thought deserved killing. With that forgiveness, Oliver seemingly lost that will to kill, or more accurately the anger and guilt inside of himself that made him feel like his soul wasn’t worth saving. It came when Oliver, once again, chose not to kill Chase, instead choosing to forgive himself for his father’s death. Of course, Oliver’s release of the past came before Chase’s dire action. (But not really because there’s such a thing as actor contracts.) Presumably, he blew Oliver’s loved ones up along with it. Chase both literally and thematically destroyed Oliver’s connection to his past when he planted hundreds of bombs on Oliver’s own personal purgatory and blew it up. With the Season 5 finale, aptly named “Lian Yu,” that identity crutch, force, whatever you want to call it has come to an end. The show has defined itself - for good and for bad (and, boy, has there been stome bad) - by Oliver’s past. For five seasons, Oliver has defined himself by the time he spent on Lian Yu.
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