For those of you still sticking by Arrow’s side, congratulations!  You’re one of the special, iron-willed few to survive the rough last few seasons. But here we are again with a brand new episode to discuss. If you haven’t seen “Spectre of the Gun” just yet, I suggest you make like a baby and head out, and return when you’ve done your homework. There will be SPOILERS!
With Oliver Queen as mayor of Star City, I guess it makes sense for the show to delve into politics. Still, it’s jarring to see the moody fictional series explicitly tackling a real life issue like gun control. Perhaps that’s because it was addressed in such a heavy-handed way. Thea returns just as some 44-year-old nobody shoots up the Mayor’s office, killing 7 staffers and putting Adrian in the hospital. His reasoning? He lost his family in a mass shooting at the mall and enacted his revenge because the city failed to pass a gun control bill.
Enter heated debates  between members of Team Arrow including Curtis and Lance who want fewer guns on the streets and  Rene and Dinah who believe guns are useful. Then there’s Oliver who is stuck in the middle because there’s no way the CW was letting him take a definitive stance on the subject. But hey, at least they found time to throw in a statistic about how black men are three times more likely to be victims of gun violence (#BlackLivesMatter).
Ultimately, what saves the day isn’t a group of costumed vigilantes but a new bill from Oliver Queen, level-headed politician, which supposedly satisfies both arguments. Super.
What did you think of the episode? How did you feel about Arrow getting political? Let us know in the comments!
(image via screencap)
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