In this episode, we see Oliver and the team reeling from a devastating blow, given the extremely eye-opening ending to the previous episode, out of which we see Steve Amell give one of his more dramatic performances of the series as a whole.
In the wake of Moira's death, Oliver finds himself overridden with grief and overwhelmed by guilt, to the point that he doesn't show up for Moira's funeral, after which Felicity and Diggle track him down with Amanda Waller's help. When they find him, he admits to them this was all his responsibility, having injected Slade with the Mirakuru, having chosen to save Sara over Shado from Dr. Ivo, and failing to cure Slade of the Mirakuru's effects.
By this point, he's basically lost all hope of defeating Slade in combat, and acknowledging that Slade had told him 'before this was to end, one more person needed to die', he reveals to Felicity and Diggle he intends to use what I refer to as 'the last card left in his hand he has to play', which is to surrender to Slade as a means of ending his vendetta. What really struck me hard was that while he was explaining to them his reasons for taking that course, he reveals he is not only expecting but seemingly fully prepared to face his own death at Slade's hands. After Felicity tries to talk him out of it, he tells her something that someone on Lian Yu had told him under similar circumstances, that 'the essence of heroism was to die so that others could live', indicating his intentions were to spare anyone else from being harmed because of actions he'd either taken or failed to take.
The second part of this scenario unfolds as a result of Slade having revealed Oliver's identity as the Arrow to Laurel, who after Oliver didn't show up for his mother's funeral, reached out to his team, who in turn informed her of Oliver's intentions. Having not only known him longer but also having been previously involved with him, she makes a deeper effort to reach through to him and pull him back from taking that leap, which she succeeds in doing by giving him that hope back by revealing to him Sebastian Blood had in fact been working with Slade all along, just as she'd suspected. Almost instantly, like flipping on a light switch, that flicker of hope comes back to Oliver, and he finds himself prepared to fight back again.
This episode truly drew out the human side of Oliver which has been one of the show's many trademarks, showing that despite his capabilities and skills, even Oliver still has his breaking points and his shortcomings, but what really struck me was despite all the grief and the guilt, his dedication to protecting the city never faltered, but rather more changed course, and in turn led to the epic conclusion of the second season.
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