Arrow Season 6 Episode 16 Review: The Thanatos Guild

Arrow has had a bit of a sporadic airing schedule over the last couple months, with an early hiatus for the Winter Olympics in February followed by only two new episodes in early March before yet another hiatus.

The show has now returned yet again though with the followup to the teaser at the end of the last episode with "The Thanatos Guild."

Last episode saw the return of Roy for the first time in a few years, with lots of talk about Thea and Roy leaving Star City to start a life together.

After an initial scene where Nyssa infiltrates a new faction of the former League of Assassins led by the character we saw watching Thea at the end of last episode named Athena, we cut to a goodbye party for Thea as her and Roy plan on leaving Star City finally.

Everything seems good and everything, but on their way out of town, their tires are shot by arrows with League of Assassins members coming down to attack them.

Thankfully, Nyssa shows up just at the right moment and takes down the other members and gets Thea and Roy to come with her.

Back in the bunker, Nyssa explains how Athena needs Thea to find a map left by the last Ra's, aka Malcolm Merlyn, which he left for only her to be able to find.

Thea is very hesistant at first to jump into this after planning on leaving, but Nyssa coerces her to help, with Oliver, Diggle, and Roy also going out to help too, with Felicity helping from the bunker of course.

They find out where the map is from someone that Malcolm trusted with the info and go to find it, where traps are everywhere.

They find a box that holds the map when they are attacked, but they get away and get it back to the bunker.

The box ends up being a puzzle that Felicity has to solve, with Nyssa saying she could just take it as far away as she can.

Thea is now feeling like she has to do this, with Roy wanting to just go with what Nyssa says and leave.

This leads to an great conversation between Oliver and Thea that harkens back to the pilot of the series.

She makes Oliver realize he shouldn't give up the hood back to Diggle has he is at his best when he's the Green Arrow. In the same way, he kind of makes Thea start thinking if she's the same.

They end up going to stop this new League from attacking the city's gas line after they get access to the map, though it appears to be blank. When they get there though, they find out Athena wants Thea's blood on the map.

We get a long fight sequence that ends with Thea stabbing Athena, though she does escape.

In the fighting, some of Thea's blood does get on the map though, with them discovering that the map is a way to three more Lazarus Pits that Malcolm discovered.

As a result, Thea decides she has to go with Nyssa to destroy these pits, with Roy also saying he's going.

This was a quick, but fitting sendoff for the character of Thea who appears to be done as a series regular, but I'm really glad to see they didn't kill her off like you often seen when series regulars end up leaving.

The other plot going on this episode involved Curtis and Dinah, with them trying to figure out which cops are dirty and which aren't as SCPD. Dinah starts to believe the captain is also dirty, which leads to them finding out Diaz is evidently peddling Vertigo in the city now too. Curtis also may have a new potential boyfriend with a new cop, though I have a feeling he'll end up being dirty.

Arrow's plot was mostly focused on the exit of Thea with the League of Assassins plot, rather than the ongoing season plot.

However, it still very important with the sendoff for Thea, so it worked anyways. It will be nice to see a return to the main plot in the future though.

Wanna read more on this? Check these out: Arrow Season 7 Episode 4 Review: 'Level Two' (more); Arrow Season 7 Episode 3 Review: 'Crossing Lines' (more); Arrow Season 7 Episode 2 Review: 'The Longbow Hunters' (more); Arrow Season 7 Episode 1 Review: 'Inmate 4587' (more).

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