Arrow Season 6 Episode 6 Review: Promises Kept

It is not all that common that Arrow does true two-parters, as the ongoing story usually just takes place over a number of episodes.

We knew entering this season though that we were going to get a Slade Wilson two-parter and the conclusion of that is titled "Promises Kept."

As with the first part, there are two distinct stories coming on here, one in Star City and one in Kasnia.

We had Dinah as the focus of the Star City side last episode, but now Diggle gets the spotlight again as they find out that a villain known as "The Dragon" is operating in Star City and stealing tech.

Diggle starts to run out of his drug that he is using to combat the tremors, with his dealer saying he wouldn't have anymore for a bit. He instead goes to the source and meets the guy in charge of distributing this "experimental drug" known as Ricardo Diaz. He makes the whole operation sound fairly legit, with him giving Diggle plenty to use.



This ends up not being as good as it sounds though, as Ricardo Diaz is none other than "The Dragon," who is based off of Richard Dragon in the comics. Kirk Acevedo joins the cast in this role, and appears to be yet another of the big bads this season alongside the likes of Cayden James and Black Siren. We don't get an awful lot of him here, but he seems like he should be an interesting character, though we don't get to see his martial arts skills that the character is known for.



When Diggle discovers that these two people are one in the same when the team is out trying to take down The Dragon, he hesitates. This leads to Diggle getting shot in his body armor and Diaz getting away. This leads to Felicity briefing the team on who Diaz is and how bad of a guy he is specifically, which really hits Diggle hard.



This leads Diggle to open up to his wife Lyla that we hadn't seen this season until earlier in this episode. He tells her about the tremors and how he was taking the drugs for them, with him asking if ARGUS has anything that could help. He then reveals he was getting them from Diaz, which she doesn't take too well.

The team once again tracks down Diaz and goes to take him down. Diaz orders them to destroy all of the drugs, with Diaz setting the remaining on fire as he escapes. Diggle has another moment of hesitation here, which he explains to Lyla how he planned on taking the drugs from there, but now realizes he needs help. This leads to him gathering the team of Dinah, Curtis, and Rene and apologizing to them and telling them everything. Curtis even tells him he should have told him from the start as he could try to come up with something for him. Diggle tells Dinah he won't be keeping anymore secrets from them, but we know she's keeping the secret that she let Vigilante escape last episode.



The Slade and Oliver parts of the episode pick up right after the ending to last episode, where it was revealed that Slade's son Joe is the leader of the Jackals. Joe has a gun held at held, but then says they have some catching up to do.



Like the previous episode, we get additional Slade flashbacks here, but they are some surprising flashbacks.

They are actually from right after the events of the season two flashbacks where Oliver had stabbed out Slade's eye and he is infused with Mirakuru. In these, he comes across Joe, who had joined the same military group that Slade was in. Slade eventually starts to hallucinate Shado like he did in season two and slaughters these soldiers.



In present time, Slade wants Joe to come home with him, but you can tell that Joe is not some innocent kid. He's a brutal leader here and Slade sticks with him. The Jackals are working on a heist to steal weapons from the Kasnian military, which Joe wants Slade to help them with.



Oliver has been sneaking around trying to find out what they are really doing, but he is captured in the process. Joe brings Oliver to Slade, saying that while his men don't trust him having his father around, he brought him a gift of Oliver. Slade plays along at first, beating up Oliver to not blow his cover.

Joe tries to get Slade to take Oliver's eye in return for him taking his, but he ends up freeing Oliver and they knock Joe out and escape.



After escaping, Oliver reveals that Joe was really planting bombs to try and blow up the local water supply, which they have to stop from happening. Slade says he would have done anything to stay with Joe, but he realizes he has to stop him. They go and Slade ends up fighting Joe. Joe reveals to Slade that he actually has another son named Grant, who is the bad guy we saw on Legends of Tomorrow in the future previously, that he didn't even know about, as well as that he had his first kill only months after when he saw his father kill the Chinese spy from the last episode, which he reveals to Slade that he saw happen.

Slade is surprised and knocked down, where he offers to let Joe just finish him, but Oliver saves him and Joe escapes.

In the end, we get another great moment between Oliver and Slade, where Slade reveals he's going to go off and search for both of his sons. His leaving is left very open ended, so hopefully we will see him again sooner rather than later if there are no DC restrictions.



"Promises Kept" was a very enjoyable conclusion to this Deathstroke two-parter that we've really been waiting for.

The Star City portions were really good and had the Diggle plot come to a head, while Slade's relationship with his son was also handled really well.

We don't get any amazing fight sequences at the caliber of the one near the end of the last episode, but this is yet another good episode in Arrow's sixth season.

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