Arrow Season 5 Episode 1 Review/Recap: Fallout

Arrow is the show that started it all for the CW with Greg Berlanti's connected comic universe that has now grown to four shows, with it often being referred to as the Arrowverse.

After a great opening two seasons, the series started to struggle midway through season three and that carried over into season four, but the series made a miraculous recovery for season five with arguably the best season of the series to date.

Season five also left us with a major cliffhanger, which has now been resolved in the season six premiered that is aptly titled Fallout.

Prometheus, aka Adrian Chase, kidnapped everybody that was important to Oliver to start off the finale, including his son.

This led to the return of Slade Wilson aka Deathstroke in what was maybe the best finale in all of the Arrowverse, with it concluding with Chase killing himself while on a boat with Oliver and his son William, thus blowing up the island due to having a deadman's switch on him.

The cliffhanger left us wondering who was dead and who was alive, which was revealed throughout the episode through flashbacks Oliver's "five years in hell" flashbacks that wrapped up last season.

The premiere picks up with Oliver chasing down some criminals, where we see Diggle, Curtis, and Wild Dog alive and well, with the latter even having a brand new costume.

We see flashbacks gradually of Lian Yu, with Slade going off on his own, Samantha running off to try and find William and Thea chasing after, and the rest trying to make it to the plane to be protecting by the explosions.

This seemed like a bit of a cop out overall as a way to avoid all these giant explosions, but if Indiana Jones can survive a nuke in a fridge, I guess anything is possible.

While trying to get to the plane, Felicity falls and Diggle helps her up, but it appears he gets somewhat caught up in a blast, but is fine later.

This plays into a plot where Diggle seems to have issues shooting his weapon with any accuracy anymore.

We don't know if it's a mental thing or perhaps even an injury he isn't telling the team about, so that will definitely be a plotline to look for moving forward.

During one of the flashbacks on the island, Oliver finds Slade alive, who takes him to what seems to be Thea either dead or in very bad shape, while Samantha comes upon them and ends up dying in his arms, her last request being that Oliver takes in William and is a real father to him.

In the present, William is now living with Oliver in Star City, though he is having nightmares about everything and sees Oliver as the "bad man." In a very nice surprise, the show brought back someone that hasn't appeared since the show's pilot, Raisa, the housekeeper that helped raise Oliver.

She now lives with Oliver to take care of William, which helps him a lot.

At the police station, we now see that Dinah is a lieutenant and is trying to interrogate the guy that Oliver and company brought in. She leaves and asks the guy to watch him, in which he asks for a soda.

Once he gets that, he pulls a tooth out of his mouth that had hidden C4 inside of it and uses it to blow open a wall that allows Black Siren to appear in the station.

She and a crew of thugs set explosivs and blow up a good part of the police station, which was a big surprise to everyone as they were told that Black Siren was dead.

We later find out in a flashback that a mysterious person, likely one of the season's villains, came in on a helicoptor and grabbed her not long after being left for dead.

They all go after Black Siren, with Dinah in the field in her new Black Canary costume for the first time.

In the process, we first see signs of Diggle's issues and Rene ends up getting shot and falling off an overpass that Oliver has to save him from, knocking him out of commission for most of the episode.

Later on though, it is revealed that Oliver managed to get him another court hearing for custody of his daughter after missing the one last season due to Chase having kidnapped him.

The flashback on the island here involves Quentin and Dinah, who had told the team they found Black Siren dead after the explosions. However, that wasn't exactly true.

They found her alive, and Quentin shot her to protect Dinah, thinking they were leaving her for dead.

She is back though and Quentin thinks she is trying to get revenge on him, starting with thinking he'd be at the police station as Deputy Mayor.

They get a lead that Black Siren is going to attack CIty Hall next where the police academy graduation was moved to, and Oliver decides to keep it as planned as a way to bait Black Siren.

They go through with everything, but she doesn't appear. Diggle stays behind in the bunker to run everything as Felicity and Curtis have to both be in the field here.

The whole thing ended up being a trap, as Black Siren and her cronies instead attack the bunker, with Diggle there all alone and not able to hit anybody with his gun.

The team arrives very quickly and fights them off, not knowing what the reason for the attack was at the time other than that she stole a prototype T-Sphere.

Oliver goes to visit Rene at the hospital to deliver the news about the new court hearing as mentioned above, where he then goes and visits Thea, who is actually alive, but comatose at the time.

Slade also comes in and reveals that the lead he gave him about his own son was legitimate and he was going to meet him.

Having Manu Bennett back on the show in some capacity as Slade adds so much to the show and I can't wait for his upcoming two parter in a month or so.

The episode ends with Oliver talking to William and him getting William to warm up to him a little bit by having him agree to watch a ball game with him the next night.

This is all quickly ruined though by a phone call from Felicity where she asks Oliver to turn it to Channel 52, where a news broadcast is on that reveals Oliver is the Green Arrow, complete with a picture of him sans the hood and mask from a rooftop or something.

Fallout was an excellent premiere to kick off the sixth season of Arrow after the fantastic season five. The lack of any major deaths from the finale may disappoint some, but there is definitely enough of an impact felt here in the premiere and will continue to moving forward.

There was no lack of action here and the show felt like it was back in full force already, rather than just having a middling premiere that sets the plot into action for the season.

This was my personal favorite of the Arrowverse season premieres this season and I can't wait to actually find out more about the villains besides Black Siren.

Wanna read more on this? Check these out: Arrow Season 6 Episode 20 Review: Shifting Allegiances (more); Arrow Season 6 Episode 19 Review: The Dragon (more); Arrow Season 6 Finale Episode Description Teases A New Ally (more); Arrow Season 6 Episode 18 Review: Fundamentals (more).

And here are some more related articles: Arrow Season 6 Episode 17 Review: Brothers In Arms (more); Arrow's Stephen Amell Teases A Big Change For Oliver That Can't Be Undone For Season 7 (more); Colin Donnell Teased For Non-Flashback Return To Arrow By Star Stephen Amell (more).

A few more: Arrow Season 6 Episode 16 Review: The Thanatos Guild (more); DC's Legends of Tomorrow's Caity Lotz Is Returning for Arrow Season 6 Finale (more).