Team Arrow is joined by the League of Assassins and the Suicide Squad to put an end to Slade’s super-soldier army in an effective season finale.

Note: The following review goes into detail about the episode. SPOILER ALERT!

“You will not die, until you know great despair. I promise.” It has been quite a long time from the moment Slade Wilson breathed those words to Oliver Queen to now. To see the road that brought them from strangers, to brothers and finally to mortal enemies has been a hard one. So it all ends here, in the season finale of “Arrow.”

The episode begins with Oliver, Felicity and Diggle in the top part of Canary’s hideout, worried that the Mirakuru cure isn’t working on Roy (who has been awfully underutilized these past few episodes). Kicking things off with a bang, a group of Slade’s soldiers show up to make a mess of the medical proceedings, climbing up the stairs to pop out of holes in the floor and various trap doors to scare the team. Once awakened, it’s immediately noted that Roy’s superpowers have been taken from him and there is no alternative but to run away from the horde of super-charged prison escapees. All would be lost, if not for ARGUS attack helicopter support, and a super sweet shot with a rocket launcher, compliments of Diggle’s ex-flame Lyla.

Post opening credit sequence, “Unthinkable” hits the ground running covering as much ground as possible from previous episodes without letting it get too dull. We are quickly reminded of Thea Queen and Malcolm Merlyn settling their father/daughter differences in the train station. We are then treated to one of the better speeches from Detective Quentin Lance to his police force about how much the city needed their real heroes. In most of the DC and Marvel mythos, cops are unfortunately pegged as inept or corrupt, and it is really nice to see “Arrow” doing what they can to make sure Starling City’s finest are poised and ready to protect the citizens.

Right after the speech, an unnoticed alliance is formed between Team Arrow and the League of Assassins for the price of Sara returning to them. While Ollie is none too pleased with her decision and less pleased with the League’s code of ethics, he accepts their help and takes the fight to Queen Consolidated armed with several arrows filled with Mirakuru to thin out Slade’s army as much as possible.

The fight in the building is quick and dirty, showcasing excellent teamwork between Arrow, Black Canary and the League of Assassins. True to form, however, Nyssa had no problem killing Isabel Rochev, telling Oliver that his failure to kill is the reason Starling City was burning. The better fight definitely took place in the tunnel. The cinematography and fight choreography were all placed very well with the characters they had to build the fight around. As I said earlier, Roy slept for the past few episodes, so to see him added to Team Arrow in a big way was great (even given the ceremonial red-domino mask to highlight his status).

The surprise of this episode was the lengths that Dig and Lyla went to in order to quell ARGUS’ attack on Starling City. We all knew the Suicide Squad was alive and controlled via brain-bomb, so seeing the Diggle/Lyla duo activate them was a pleasant surprise that I enjoyed far more than I probably should have. I will say that I could have done without the pregnancy factor. With so much going on, Diggle and Lyla were doing just fine working together to stop ARGUS from blowing the city to smithereens and didn’t need the extra element added to it. But as with every finale, they’ve got to do everything they can to make sure you tune in next season.

The absolute standout of this episode was the ending fight between Slade and Arrow, with the accompaniment of great cinematography and choreography. The quick flashes between the sinking ship five years ago and the current rooftop fights were excellently done and had a great flow within them. The ending moments of the fight do a great job of wrapping the rivalry up in a practical and satisfying way. Considering how much stock they had placed in the Slade/Arrow feud this entire season, “Arrow” took a great risk screwing up the ending, and I am pleased to say they did a great job with it.

THE BREAKDOWN

Thea deciding to leave Roy and head off with Malcolm to become “stronger” seemed a little strange considering their conversation about trust. It didn’t make sense that she wouldn’t have at least made a phone call or waited to talk to him before leaving a note to just abandon him. In the same way, Quinten Lance’s last minute collapse didn’t seem necessary. I know the damage suffered throughout the night was drastic, but to go from having a total stable conversation to falling down and spitting out blood? He could have just asked to go to the hospital. I will say, however, that the passing of the torch (via leather jacket) was a nice touch from Sara to Laurel. The finale ends with Oliver waking up in Hong Kong to see Amanda Waller. “Unthinkable” did an awful lot to lay the groundwork for Season 3, and I for one am excited to tune in to see what happens next.

What did you think of the final fight? What do you speculate will happen next season? Shoot off in the comments below.