Arrow Season 6 Episode 6 Review: Promises Kept
Andy Behbakht
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After an intense Arrow Season 6 Episode 5, the latest chapter of Arrow deals with the aftermath of the reunion between Slade and Joe Wilson.
But Team Arrow have their plate full in Arrow Season 6 Episode 6 with the debut of Ricardo Diaz a.k.a. the Dragon.
I was satisfied with the first part of this intense Deathstroke storyline. Did part two manage to wrap up this story nicely? Yes, but also a little bit no.
It is rare for Arrow when the flashbacks are equally as good as the things going on in the present. I never thought of where Slade went after making it off the island all those seasons ago.
That is why I was surprised that the flashbacks portion of "Promises Kept" featured the aftermath of Slade's time on Lian Yu. But it was a pleasant surprise that I ended up enjoying the more I saw of it.
It also explained why Shado randomly popped up in one of the trailers before the season premiere. It was a solid tie-in as well as a reminder of the Slade's journey.
It took a minute or two to get used to seeing Slade on Mirakuru again since it's been almost four seasons since then. Manu Bennett has always killed it in playing Slade from all these complex sides.
"Promises Kept" was, without doubt, no exception. While the flashbacks in the last episode were useful exposition, I enjoyed these flashbacks quite more while getting to know Joe better.
Speaking of the devil, let's focus on Joe for a minute. I'm glad the writers managed to avoid making Joe as underwhelming as Grant Wilson when we met him in Star City 2046.
Since we don't know when we will see Slade again on Arrow, I wanted this two-parter to work in every way possible. That included Joe because of the significant role he ended up playing.
Don't get me wrong; I haven't forgotten the bad things that Slade has done to others as Deathstroke. But it was genuinely heartbreaking to see how dysfunctional Slade's father-son relationship ended up being.
I don't get the point that Joe was trying to make by outing Grant's existence to Slade. Even though Slade doesn't know about his other son, I don't get where Joe was going with that.
Either Joe was getting extremely petty with Slade or he genuinely thought it would work things out between the two of them. While the motives weren't the most compelling, I did find Joe turning on Slade to be interesting.
I honestly expected Joe to somehow die at the ends of either Slade or himself. Now that we know he is alive, we might see him again someday. Slade's temporary exit felt appropriate given everything that happened.
While I wish we could have Slade around more regularly, I'm OK with the direction they went for him. I guess it could have been worse where they killed him off!
With that said, let's talk about what Team Arrow was up to. We finally got introduced to Kirk Acevedo's Ricardo Diaz a.k.a. Richard Dragon.
I think we didn't get enough of him throughout the episode for me to form an opinion. In the little bits that we did get of him, Acevedo made a great baddie.
It felt quite similar to how Arrow Season 6 set up Black Siren to be Black Canary's big bad. It wouldn't shock me if Dragon might become Diggle's personal nemesis which I wouldn't mind.
Even though I appreciate him coming out to his team about his drug addiction....there was one thing that took away the stakes of this arc. Because Curtis is Curtis, he is already working on ways to help Diggle's nerve damage.
It shouldn't be this simple for someone who went through something traumatic, to be cured this fast. What is the point of even making these game-changing events where your characters simply get out of it in a piece?
I like it when our characters have to work for what they want and truly earn it. Only time will tell how Curtis' solution plays out.
While Diggle has sworn to Dinah that he won't keep any secrets from her, it appears our Canary isn't fully in with that yet. This is what I was worried about after the Vigilante got outed that it would make Dinah look.
Overall, "Promises Kept" was a solid hour that capped off the Deathstroke two-parter, even though I'm going to miss Slade quite a lot. Perhaps Bennett will be able to show up in the second half of the season.
Now it's your turn to let us know what you thought of Arrow Season 6 Episode 6! Did you enjoy the conclusion to the Wilson men?
How was it getting introduced to Ricardo Diaz a.k.a. Richard Dragon? Do you think it's going to bite Dinah in the ass that she is hiding something from him?
Remember you can watch Arrow online right here via TV Fanatic! Get caught up with the Emerald Archer.
