Review- Arrow Season 4 Episode 17: “Beacon of Hope”

Check out Our Review [WITH SPOILERS] of Arrow Episode 17: “Beacon of Hope”

I really didn’t think that going into this episode, an installment of Arrow featuring the Bug-Eyed Bandit would be my favorite chapter of the season. But dip me in honey, it sure is as this this week’s Arrow brings the laugh and the poignancy.

I’ll pretty much watch Emily Kinney in anything (we miss you Beth!), but let’s face it, the Big-Eyed Bandit is not anyone’s idea of A-list. In the comics, the Bug-Eyed Bandit is male and ranks somewhere between Doctor Double X and the Polka-Dot Man as far as historically lame villains are concerned. Maybe it’s Kinney, but man, does TV’s female version of BEB really work for me this week. Kinney plays such a great baddie, she really makes me want to see a member of Team Arrow, any member, kick her bee pun-spouting ass. For those of you who might not remember, the Bandit appeared on The Flash last year and was taken out by Barry and the guest-starring Felicity. Well, this week on Arrow the Bug-Eyed Bandit was back, and this time the stakes were very high; if truth be told, they kind of tragic as well.

It all beings when the Bandit uses her hacking skills to get an early parole from prison. She wastes no time in attacked Palmer Tech, and we are off. Unfortunately, Felicity’s mom and Thea were visiting Oliver Queen’s now ex-fiancé, Felicity, and the three are trapped within the skyscraper. By millions of mechanical bees. Yes, it’s Die Hard with bees and it’s as unapologetically awesome as it sounds.

The Bandit’s bees have learned some new tricks and can form into a humanoid bee man-that knows martial arts. So it’s all kind of like Swarm from Spider-Man, except Emily Kinney is classing up the joint.

Oliver, Diggle and Laurel must free their friends from the BEEsieged (I’m not proud) building; it takes two tries, because some of the bees get inside Oliver and began replicating inside his anatomy. Ew. Thankfully, one Curtis Holt comes to the rescue and manages to find a way to cure Oliver of the bee infestation and also helps Felicity defeat the Bandit herself. There is some tragedy to the whole assault; it turns out the Bandit has spinal cancer and just wants the specs of Felicity’s new spine-healing chip. But she went about it the wrong way, and got her stinger kicked.

Clearly, the highlight of the episode is Holt and I can’t wait to see this tech-genius work with Team Arrow some more. Lest I forget, we also have some prison drama with Damien Darhk and the return of Murmur as a prison rival. Darhk also charges Malcolm Merlyn with getting the evil magic man out of prison and we get to see Merlyn’s plan in action as he allies himself with Diggle’s brother. Yeah, after this light and airy episode, business just picked up.

Maybe it’s because I had my fill this week of dark and dire DC heroes in media, but I really love the tone and execution of an episode that could have just been silly. But martial arts bee person and all, I’m calling this one a hug win.