Let There Be Movies

Review by Logan The end of the television series is often paradoxically the most depressing and exciting part of the season.  Yes, the season is coming to an end, but the end is epic, thrilling, and gives a huge payout for staying with the show. At least, that’s the way season finales are supposed to be.  Unfortunately, Arrow‘s season finale suffers from keeping too many plates spinning at the same time.  The arch that has been consistent over the progression of the series has been that Oliver’s time on the island turned him into a vigilante killer, that Malcolm’s plot which resulting in Tommy’s death turned him away from his killing ways, and that he now finds a way to save Starling City without resorting to such means. The problem here, as in some previous episodes this season, is that the episode is thematically divided.  The episode as a whole ought to be about whether or not Oliver will ultimately kill Ra’s al Ghul and whether that killing is justified or not.  That theme is there, but you also see, through flashbacks, how Oliver came to be a vigilante killer.  And so, instead of seeing an overall progression into a certain ideology for Oliver, it’s like trying to watch the first and last part of a movie series simultaneously, and as a result we’re left with a somewhat broken picture of who Oliver is.  Better to watch one at a time, if not in sequence. But let’s spend some time looking at the present.  We’ve dealt before with how Oliver was a killer and then progressed to not being one, but what about Oliver dealt with Ra’s al Ghul?  Was that justified?  That’s really the questions that must occur to us as Christians, is to what extent we can abide by vigilante justice, and how we should approach the worldview of the show.  In this arena, I’m going to take a somewhat different approach to how the events unfolded.  I will be so bold as to say that the way Oliver dealt with Ra’s is consistent with Christianity; how he responded to it after the fact, however, may not be. Allow me to explain.  I don’t believe that Scripture teaches the taking of a life is always murder.  I don’t want to expound that discussion beyond the scope of this site, but suffice it to say that when the Bible speaks in the Old Testament of murder being wrong (or in older translations, ‘Thou shalt not kill’) it is not speaking of all death, but of premeditated murder.  Things permissible in the United States such as self-defense, protecting your family, or protecting other innocent life from the attack of one who may be a killer, is not excluded by that command.  I believe the same principle applies to the New Testament era. So when it comes to Oliver, killing Ra’s al Ghul in order to protect the innocent lives of the city is absolutely consistent with Christianity.  I won’t say that everything he did to protect his cover was consistent with Christianity, but we’re left in the dark and theoretical with much of that.  We see how he treated his friends (although he ultimately saved them), but don’t see the supposed things he did for Ra’s.  So the main point of this, that he killed a terrorist to save a city, is absolutely consistent with the idea that it is God’s will to protect the innocent. What of how he reacts after the fact, though?  Oliver seems completely unencumbered by his decision to take a man’s life, and at the end of the episode and the season, what he did to get to that point seems not to bother him at all.  In fact, he even tells Felicity that he’s happy.  And that leaves us with the idea that taking another person’s life, someone made in the image of God no matter how evil they were at that point, is really not too big of a deal.  It plays up the sanctity of life for the good guys, but downplays it for the bad guys. Spoiler alert: according to scripture, we’ve all been bad guys.  So the episode’s message as a whole, with all of its action, heroes, and fast-paced thrills, shows a man who is a hero doing what he needs to do to protect innocent lives.  But it also seems to indicate that the loss of life is only a big deal if the person happens to be good.  So while it is a message I can get behind, it also doesn’t come without its casualties.  That, along with the utterly distracting flashbacks, and how they impede Oliver’s character development, ultimately hurts the season finale.  It certainly isn’t the worst we’ve seen this season, but neither does it top what we’ve seen, which is ultimately the purpose of a season finale. Grade: B-