Arrow season 5, episode 9, “What We Leave Behind,” revealed Prometheus’ identity and left our heroes in some difficult situations.
I’ll admit to being disappointed at the reveal of Prometheus’ identity in the mid-season finale of Arrow, though I’m still expecting a twist since he (is Prometheus even a he?) never took off his mask and we never learned his name.
So, Prometheus is the illegitimate child of Justin Claybourne, one of the people on The List. Claybourne ran a company that made drugs to treat tuberculosis and, like some individuals in the news recently, jacked the price up so the poor couldn’t afford the treatment. And treatment was needed because Claybourne conspired to cause a TB outbreak that would in turn require people to need his expensive drug. The Hood at first gave Claybourne the chance to drop the price on his drug, and when he didn’t, The Hood killed him.
So, Claybourne was hardly a paragon of society; spiking drug prices is already despicable, but manufacturing an outbreak to create demand is downright evil. He’s exactly the type of person The Hood would’ve targeted back in season 1.
And, in fact, the flashbacks in this episode were essentially a missing story from season 1. It was early on in Oliver’s time as The Hood because he visits Felicity at Queen Consolidated with a lame excuse to get help. It was a nice reminder of how things have changed, seeing Felicity as the IT girl (and the red pen) and Oliver wearing the grease paint rather than the mask Barry made for him.
Oh, and the whole killing vs. not killing thing.
Knowing that Prometheus came out of Oliver’s actions in season 1, I confess I was hoping it would be someone we already knew. The list of people from season 1 who are alive and would have a fight to pick with Oliver is pretty small, but there could have been some creativity with that.
It makes sense that Oliver’s actions as The Hood would affect not only the people he went after but the people who knew them, including their families. And I can get behind seeing the collateral damage, basically, of Oliver’s actions and forcing him to deal with it.
But if Prometheus was going to be the family of someone he went after, I would rather it have been the child of someone we did see in season 1. The Hood killed plenty of sleazebags, and Prometheus could have been the child of any of them.
Inventing an illegitimate child of someone we never met feels lazy; yes, Justin Claybourne’s name was on The List so he didn’t come out of nowhere. But the fact that we had to have flashbacks showing that story makes the whole thing feel less full-circle than it would have had Prometheus been the child of someone we’ve met already.
Because, again, it’s less the child aspect that’s bothering me and more just the invention of a character when the whole point of this arc has been to bookend season 1. It would be more powerful if the bookend to season 1, you know, appeared in season 1.
Also in this episode, Evelyn reveals herself as a traitor after giving the team cute homemade stockings with their vigilante names on them.
Meanwhile, Curtis is attacked by Prometheus. He lives, but the attack reveals to Paul, Curtis’ husband, what Curtis has been up to late at night. Curtis said he was working on a startup with Felicity, but Curtis forgot to tell Felicity about this lie so she can’t cover for him. Paul then assumes Curtis is seeing someone else, but it’s not much better when he learns the truth. He can’t deal with being married to a vigilante so ends up leaving.
I’m saddened by this because Paul and Curtis were a cute couple, but at the same time, I think Paul had a completely realistic reaction. Not only has Curtis been lying to him for months, now every time Curtis leaves the house, Paul is going to be worrying about whether he’ll come home or not. Moreover, working with the Green Arrow means more and more secrets; it’s a part of his life that the couple can’t share. And that drives them apart.
I’m holding out hope that the two will be able to work things out because it’s a bummer to see the one same-sex couple on the show break up, but at the same time, I’m glad there’s exploration of what it means to a significant other if one is a vigilante and the other isn’t. We were also seeing a bit of that with Felicity and Billy Malone, but Billy was a cop who admired the Green Arrow. Oh, and he met a tragic end in this episode.
So, Billy is kidnapped by Prometheus after Felicity tells him not to get involved in the Prometheus investigation. Prometheus put Billy in his suit, taped a weapon to his hand, and put a recorder with his voice on his chest. Oliver then kills who he thinks is Prometheus, only to discover he’s killed Billy.
To Felicity’s credit, she doesn’t blame Oliver; she recognizes that this was Prometheus’ fault. I was worried we’d have several episodes of her being angry at Oliver for killing her boyfriend but it doesn’t look like that will be an issue. What did rub me the wrong way, though, was that after the reveal, only Thea comforts Felicity while the rest of the team gives Oliver hugs.
The episode closes as Oliver visits his reporter semi-girlfriend (who has some Russian vodka, which seems relevant) and I assume they sleep together. Diggle, meanwhile, gets a call from Lyla telling him to come to their safe house, only to get busted by the authorities.
Then Oliver returns to the Arrow cave and finds…
Source
“Surprise, bitch. Bet you thought you’d seen the last of me.” — Laurel, probably.