7) “The Promise” – March 5, 2014
It took over a year to get to this moment, the reunion of Oliver and Slade in the present day, and predictably it doesn’t go well. The tension filled hour was the first to portray the former island bros as enemies for the first time, and the first to give Oliver and his teammates a real hint at the full weight of the enemy they were up against.
How was Oliver going to react to Slade? Could he act while in the company of his family, who were host Slade as the newest contributor to Moira’s mayoral campaign? Would Slade show the same restraint?
“The Promise” is also an anomaly in Arrow as the focus of the episode is more on the flashbacks versus what’s going on in the present day. The action-packed story chronicled how Oliver, Sara, and Slade took the freighter Amazo, and freed the prisoners, only to see their hope to get off Lian Yu fade once Slade learns that Ivo killed Shado supposedly based on Oliver’s choice.
The episode’s title comes from Slade’s final words to Oliver at the end of the hour, words that have guided his mission all season so far: to make his former friend suffer and lose all that he holds dear before finally killing him.
