The episode was...fine.
It seemed to be all written just for the Thea/Sara reveal.
And having Slade back was cool but seemed unnecessary.
Like a lot of this season, there's plenty of...stuff...happening ranging from good to seemingly unnecessary but the direction it's heading is unclear.
I'm really betting on the payoff in the last episodes... hopefully... but I've mentioned it before, the result of who the big bad guy is being unclear because their presence isn't really felt is viewers scratching their head and feeling like progress isn't being made. It's one thing to have multiple possible big bads but who it really is is being kept vague. That's not really what's happening because their words say Ras. It could be a giant misdirect where really the finale ends up being focused on Merlyn's past attempts at controlling Team Arrow/Thea and Oliver facing him.
It's not like I'm expecting Ras to be defeated in any real way.
All I'm saying is I'm hoping for the Arrow payoff. Everything locks into place and the stakes get higher. Because they don't really want to lose fans like myself who are generally happy with the show and aren't shippers. We accept the clumsy stuff because we like the characters, action, overarching plots and standalones. You lose those fans and you lose those who were into it even in season 1.
Ideally, this season is all crucible for Oliver to become the Green Arrow.
You know, the amount of girls Oliver have been with, I hate the fact that in the crossover episode, he was telling Barry to forget about Iris, cause guys like them don't get the girls, while he goes around and date every single girl on the show.
Well to be fair it's not like any of them resulted in either a continually existing relationship or them surviving.
It's just advice from experience.
One of those superhero things where they claim they don't want to put their loved ones in danger but still attempt to have relationships because they're people.
Objectively, it's smarter for them to avoid relationships and just fight crime. But they have emotions so...that can't last.