When an old family friend, Jessica Danforth (Jeri Ryan) tells Oliver and Thea that she is going to run for mayor, both Queens are concerned considering the last three mayors have been murdered. Thea begins to exhibit effects from the Lazarus Pit. Felicity is faced with a tough business decision and looks to one of her employees, Curtis Holt (Echo Kellum), for help.
"The Candidate" feels like a transitional episode of Arrow. The season premiere ended with Oliver coming out into the spotlight as the Green Arrow to Star City. He wanted to be a beacon of hope for the city in this time of despair. This episode is largely about him realizing that is not enough. He wants to be different in order to do a better job for this city. He wants to protect it from Damien Darhk who wants to destroy it. He can't continue doing things the same way that he did as the Arrow. The team is different. The villains are different. And so is he. However, this episode is largely centered around Oliver stepping into the public spotlight himself. Last season was all about his personality crisis of Oliver Queen vs. the Arrow. This season both sides of his identity are working to motivate the people of Star City.Oliver is going to run for Mayor. That would have seemed like a preposterous idea in any other season. Here, it seems reasonable simply because of how dire the situation has become in Star City. Jessica Danforth, an old friend of the Queen family, wants to step into that position after being inspired by the Green Arrow's message of hope. She quickly learns that Damien and his various assassins don't want anyone to take this office. Of course, it's weird that Damien outsources getting her to stop running to a wannabe criminal. This bad guy isn't affiliated with Damien's organization. That's why Felicity has such a good job of identifying him - or at least it's quicker than the non-existent details of the ghosts. This guy wants to work for Damien. This is his audition. Damien wants to see how he will handle taking care of this threat to his plan.
The assassination attempt fails on multiple fronts. Oliver and Thea are able to protect Jessica during the first attack which happened as she was announcing her campaign for the office. They do so without costumes or arrows too. But that's just the introduction to this threat. A more sinister plot happens later when Jessica's daughter is kidnapped. That doesn't sit well with Damien. It's interesting to see that despite his embrace of villainy there is a line that he doesn't cross. Apparently, kidnapping a child in order to get results is that line. Damien has a code. That could be an interesting thing to flesh out in the future. But again, it leads to another conflict that leads to Oliver and Thea taking on this bad guy together.
The big fight sequence highlights just how monstrous Thea has become in the six months following her dip into the Lazarus Pit. She believes she is totally fine and Oliver is just worrying too much about her in the field. But when she is fighting, she does lose control a little bit. In battle, her rage takes over and all she can think about is doing the most amount of damage possible. She almost kills a man by lighting him on fire. If Oliver hadn't been there, he would have died. That action is enough for Thea to take a step back and see that maybe everything isn't alright with her. Oliver does share the truth about the warning Malcolm gave him before he chose to revive her. That knowledge doesn't change a whole lot but it's nice that Oliver is open with her about it.
However, Oliver telling Thea the truth about the Lazarus Pit only happens so that Laurel learns about it and can hope that Sara can be revived by it as well. When Thea decides that something may be wrong with her, Laurel is happy to create a fake spa trip explanation to give Oliver a reason not to worry about where they've disappeared to. She wants Thea to help take Sara's body to Nanda Parbat. She provides the sound argument that that is the only place that can help her better understand what the side effects of being in the pit are. It will also mean Thea and Laurel will have to deal with Malcolm and Nyssa again. Nyssa never once mentioned using the pit to revive Sara. So that could create a precarious situation in the future.
And lastly, Felicity actually starts running Palmer Technologies. She visits the meeting in person for the first time ever. She is the woman in charge of a billion dollar company and has to decide how to keep it from going under. The businessmen suggest downsizing in order to keep revenue strong in the collapsing city. It's an amusing story for Felicity right now. It's not as good as her sitting in the lair asking everyone to give her a code name for the team. But it's still filled with plenty of prospect that could inform the rest of the season in an interesting way. She meets Curtis Holt who seems like he could be a good foil when it comes to the technological aspects of the job. And yet, how effective is she going to be at this job if Oliver runs for mayor? He's doing that because he believes it's the right thing to do. But he will also be putting Felicity in harm's way because of it. She has to be willing to take that risk too. Plus, she has made a promise to debut a revolutionary piece of technology in six months. That's a lot for her to be dealing with right now. But it sure sounds like the upcoming season will be busy with lots of compelling stories for her and the team.
Some more thoughts:
- "The Candidate" was written by Marc Guggenheim & Keto Shimizu and directed by John Behring.
- The hour also sets out to clarify what exactly the flashbacks will be about this season. They are still surrounded in a ton of mystery. However, Oliver has infiltrated a group of soldiers forcing people to work for them despite collapsing from heat exhaustion. However, the most important thing about this story is the fact that the flashback wig is finally gone!
- Diggle shares with Laurel the news about HIVE being the organization that killed his brother all those years ago. Every single lead he has found has been a dead end. And now, Damien is in town. That makes this personal to him. It's also a good thing that he didn't keep his connection to all of this a secret for very long.
- When Oliver saves Jessica, she wonders how he did that. He gives a brief explanation of taking self defense classes. Because that makes more sense than spending five years on a deserted island fending for himself.
- If Oliver becomes Mayor of Star City, it's going to become that much harder that people don't think that he is also the Green Arrow. It's one distinctive jaw line after all.
- That final shot of Sara's decaying body was so unnecessary.
