Arrow Season 7 Finale: 5 Ups & 3 Downs From 'You Have Saved This City'

Downs...

3. Diggle Is The Personification Of Exposition

If Warner Bros. ever decides to release an Arrow audiobook, they ought to hire David Ramsey to narrate it, because that was the only purpose that John Diggle served in the finale.

The Arrow vet often tends to feel lost for a storyline at least three times each season but, given that the majority of the characters were only there to serve as superhero help this week, that wasn't the issue here. No, the real problem with Diggle was how he was used during that time.

In the midst of any important conversation between the members of Team Arrow, the character would randomly cut-in to either remind viewers of how things went down or tell them exactly what is happening (you know, in case they weren't following along) or, most criminally, tell us why we should be worried about a threat that the writers haven't been able to make us worried about.

An example of this was when, following Emiko's death, he literally just said "Oliver, I know this wasn't how you wanted her story to end" and then stopped and walked off - gee John, thanks for reminding your best friend that his sister died and that he failed to save her. Of course, this was a glaringly obvious way of reminding the viewers that Oliver didn't want things to end like that but, not only was it a somewhat cringe-worthy line, it made Diggle appear like nothing more than a cold fact-stating plot device - which we know isn't the case.

Diggle's lines probably stood out like a sore thumb because he would usually have more time to speak when being Team Arrow's moral compass. But alas, this episode featured a lot more characters than usual, so he didn't have as many lines and, as a result, everything he came out with just sounded flat and highly expositional.