“Deathstroke Returns”: Why Vigilante’s Identity is Underwhelming

In tonight’s episode of Arrow, the vigilante, Vigilante’s identity was revealed to be (spoiler alert) Vincent. Now for anyone like me who doesn’t really know who he is.

Here’s all that I know about him so far:

• He’s now a meta-human with some type of healing power. Possibly invincible?
• He’s Tina, or Dinah, AKA the new Black Canary’s (or at least who they’re pushing to be the new Black Canary) ex-boyfriend and ex-partner

That’s all I really know. And it’s okay that I don’t know much about him yet because there’s no reason why I really should know much about him yet. It helps in trying to entice the audience back for the rest of the season. But here’s my problem with Vincent being the Vigilante: it’s too predictable. In all honesty, I didn’t watch all of season five. Mostly just to support my girl, Laurel, AKA the real Black Canary. But I, at least, watched most of it. I missed part of the latter half of the season so I didn’t know who Vincent was. But I did see someone guess that Vigilante would be Vincent. So there goes the shock factor. Plus, it means that his story is going to be different than the comics.

The Vigilante

Now, a lot of people will argue that this is a TV show and that it doesn’t have to match the comics which I get to a certain extent; I think the story can be changed as long as it keeps the core aspects of the character and/or story.  This character is already an established character in the comics which means that there is already a fan base full of people that are hesitant in watching their favorite character or story being reimagined in a different medium. The least the writers could do is respect the material by keeping the iconic characteristics.

Vincent being the Vigilante means that he’s connected to Tina which unfortunately means that he is really just a means to an end. I think the writers are just using him to elevate Tina’s story, which wouldn’t be a bad thing if Vigilante wasn’t a hero in the comics.

Vincent and Tina

I think what might happen is that they’re going to go into Vincent’s story in relation to Tina and then either have him leave to be his own hero or add him onto the Arrow team, both of which are not great directions to go story-wise in my opinion. If Vincent leaves to be his own hero, it means that he really is just there to advance Tina’s story which is disappointing, especially for people who really want to know more about Vigilante or for people who are fans of the character. If he’s added to the Arrow team, it’ll be too much. I already feel like the Arrow team already consists of too many people so adding another person to it would add to the crowd.

Who Vigilante Could’ve Been

I think it would’ve been much more interesting if Vigilante turned out to be Slade’s son. Or it would’ve been really cool if it were a woman. I don’t know who that woman would be but it would’ve been a great twist. Other than that, I think the episode in all was pretty mediocre. Bringing back Slade helped but the episode wasn’t very interesting in my opinion. What did you guys think of the episode? Comment down below and tweet me at @mzsnguyenthai.