Arrow - Reversal

"Reversal" offers two seemingly independent plotlines which will eventually connect to reveal the identity of the new big bad for Season Six. Good news everyone, it's not an evil archer! Diggle's (David Ramsey) run as Green Arrow continues, although we get no follow-up to last week's foreshadowing of his steroid-ish drug use to keep his tremor in check which will no doubt cause the end of his run as the vigilante through his death or someone else's. Team Arrow struggles to understand the motives of Black Siren (Katie Cassidy) who begins killing off random people in Star City. Meanwhile, Felicity (Emily Bett Rickards) is approached by her old Helix contact Alena (Kacey Rohl) who reveals the cyber-terrorist Cayden James (Michael Emerson), the one Felicity helped release from prison, is about to launch a major attack which could lead to millions of casualties.

The two storylines converge when Curtis (Echo Kellum) confirms that Black Siren's victims are connected as the are keys which will allow him entry into a vault where he can access and bring down the entire Internet. And (surprise, surprise) it's located in Star City. While the logic of all of that isn't easy to swallow, what's interesting about the idea (which leads to a big battle inside the vault between our heroes and Siren and James' nameless henchmen), is that the goals of our evil mastermind aren't what everyone thought they were. James, who relies on the Internet, had no intention of bringing it down. However, the threat put Felicity in position to compromise the vault's firewall in a way that, if ever found, will eventually trace back to her rather than James.

James, protected by Black Siren, makes for a new type of threat for Team Arrow to face. It will be interesting to see what the villain's real plans will be as the season unfolds. (Maybe he plans on releasing a Machine that can see everything?) The episode's title comes from the reversal of roles as Oliver (Stephen Amell) has to watch Felicity leave dinner early and put herself in danger. Taking up Felicity's role, Oliver heads to the bunker to offer technical support. While this doesn't help with mysterious absences related to Green Arrow sightings the FBI will surely notice, it does provide some nice moments between the two supporting each other.