By Matt Webb Mitovich / June 15 2022, 6:00 PM PDT
The following contains spoilers from the June 15 episode of The Flash, but really also for the Arrowverse in general.
“Oh, Johnnnnn….. You can come out now.”
Midway through this Wednesday’s episode of The Flash, after Barry paid another visit to the imprisoned Eobard Thawne on Lian Yu, it was revealed that the adversaries had not been alone. Rather, Thawne was also about to receive a second visitor in the form of… John Diggle, played by Arrow vet David Ramsey.
What came out of the most unexpected meeting was a resolution to a years-long Arrowverse arc, which began with mere fan speculation and then leaned into same in Arrow‘s series finale, where Diggle discovered a crash-landed “cube,” inside of which was a green, glowing… something.
What followed over the years, via multiple Ramsey/Diggle guest spots on other Arrowverse series, was what is commonly referred to as Diggle’s Green Lantern arc, though the word “Lantern” never, ever was uttered, and perhaps not even “Green” either? Arrow Series Finale: Burning Qs Answered! Launch Gallery
Emerging from the ARGUS cell shadows, holding the “cube” (or spray-painted Big Mac container), Diggle told Thawne that for two years now he has “covered every corner of this Earth” trying to open the box again, since it had closed shut before he got a chance to see what was inside. All that is known is that the knowledge contained within “is beyond any current human understanding, and that it could transport matter.” As such, Diggle worries that if he succeeds in re-opening the cube, it will take him away from his home and family — and yet, “I can’t leave it behind,” he grumbles. “I can still feel it in my mind, pulling me closer. And the more I fight it, the louder I hear its call.”
Diggle for #reasons suspects that Thawne may be able to help open the cube, and the man from the future agrees — provided that he is allowed a look at its contents, in success.
Thawne explains that the cube “appears to people who are at a crossroads, a turning point in life,” and since Diggle at the time he first found it had just buried Oliver Queen and was moving his family to Metropolis, he for the first time in years was in charge of his destiny. But the box closed, deeming Diggle not yet ready to accept its power. But is he now?
“I am,” John said, so Thawne coached him to “put yourself in that headspace again” and think of what the future could be, “all the light that you could bring into this world, all the cosmic odysseys that await…. all the lives you could lead. And as Diggle focused and a flurry of “cosmic” stock photos flitted across the screen, the cube re-opened and once again bathed its beholder in a green light.
Diggle, though, in that moment realized, with vigor, “I don’t want this, I don’t want any of this! Do you hear me? The answer is no!” he roared, as he lobbed the cube across room, and it vanished into a void. Thawne yelped at Diggle’s rejection of the cube, asking if he realized what he had done. “I do, I finally do,” said John, a tear rolling down his face. “I saw a thousand lives I could lead, but not one of them led me back to my family.”
Thoroughly irked that he never got his promised chance to peek inside, Thawne dissed Dig as being “not special, not someone important, and this was your last chance to be someone powerful!”
“But I am someone special,” Diggle countered. “I now realize the cube was trying to make me someone else… something else. But there is no power in the universe more powerful than then love I have for my family.”
What did you think of Diggle’s decision, and the handling of this “Green Lantern” arc as a whole?
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